The  PC)j£TS  of 
MODERN  FRANCE 


The  'POETS    of 
MODERN    FRANCE 

by 
LUDWIG    LEWISOHN 

A.  M.,  ^ilTT.  D. 
PROFESSOR  AT  THE  OHIO  STATE  UNIVERSITY 


NEW  YORK       B.  W.  HUEBSCH       MCMXIX 


COPYRIGHT,  191S.  BY 
B.  W.  HUEBSCH 


First    printing,  April,    1918 
Second  printing,  February,  1919 


PRINTED   IN   U.   S.   A. 


PREFACE 

It  is  time  that  the  art  of  translation,  of  which  we 
have  many  beautiful  examples  in  English,  should 
be  strictly  distinguished  from  the  trade.  Like 
acting  or  the  playing  of  music,  it  is  an  art  of  inter- 
pretation, more  difficult  than  either  in  this  respect : 
that  you  must  interpret  your  original  in  a  medium 
never  contemplated  by  its  author.  It  requires,  at 
its  best,  an  exacting  and  imaginative  scholarship, 
for  you  must  understand  your  text  in  its  fullest 
and  most  living  sense;  it  requires  a  power  over 
the  instrument  of  your  own  language  no  less  com- 
plete than  the  virtuoso's  over  the  pianoforte,  than 
the  actor's  over  the  expression  of  his  voice  or  the 
gestures  of  his  body.  Its  aim,  too,  is  identical 
with  the  aims  of  those  sister  arts  of  interpretation : 
to  give  a  clear  voice  to  beauty  that  would  else  be 
dumb  or  quite  muffled.  For  even  to  intelligent 
lovers  of   the   arts   a  subtle   or   intricate   poem 


4119 


in  a  language  not  their  own  is  as  lifeless  as  a 
page  of  Beethoven  which  they  have  not  heard 
played. 

What  now  should  be  the  aim  of  the  translator 
of  poetry?  For  it  is  with  poetry  that  I  am  here 
concerned.  It  should  be  clearly,  firsj;jDif.-all,  to 
produce  a  beauyydfn^^^^^^^  If  he  has  not  done 

that  he  may  have  served  the  cause  of  information, 
of  language  study.  In  art  he  has  committed  a 
plain  ineptitude.  If  he  has  produced  a  beautiful 
poem,,  much  should  be  forgiven  him,  although  a 
beautiful  poem  may  not,  necessarily,  be  a  beau- 
tiful translation.  To  be  that  it  must  sustain  cer- 
tain relations  to  its  original.  It  must,  to  begin 
with,  be  faithful — not  pedantically,  but  essen- 
tially, not  only  to  the  general  content  of  the  or- 
iginal poem  but  to  its  specific  means  of  embodying 
that  content.  There  should  be  as  little  definite 
alteration,  addition  or  omission  as  possible.  In 
the  translations  in  this  volume  there  will  not  be 
found,  I  think,  more  than  a  dozen  words  that 
were  not  in  the  texts,  or  more  than  half  a  dozen 
actual  verbal  substitutions.  The  associative 
values  of  two  different  linguistic  media  should. 


of  course,  be  sensitively  borne  in  mind.  One 
idiom  must  be  made  not  only  to  copy  but  rightly  to 
interpret  the  other.  It  is  better,  however,  to  risk 
a  slight  obscurity  which  time  and  the  growth  of 
new  artistic  insights  may  remove  than  to  substi- 
tute an  easy  meaning  for  your  author's  trouble- 
some one. 

The  second  relation  which  the  translated  poem 
must  sustain  to  its  original  concerns  the  far  more 
difficult  and  exacting  matter  of  form.  The  lan- 
guage involved  will,  of  course/moclily  the  charac- 
ter of  the  translator's  problem.  If  he  is  dealing 
with  languages  that  have  practically  the  same  pro- 
sodic  system,  any  two  Germanic  languages  for  in- 
stance, he  must  scrupulously  preserve  the  music, 
the  exact  cadences  of  his  original.  If  he  is  trans- 
lating from  a  language  that  has  a  quite  different 
prosody,  such  as  the  French,  he  must  interpret 
the  original  forms  by  analogous  forms.  Thus  I 
have  rendered  all  poems  written  wholly  in  alex- 
andrines into  English  heroic  verse,  but  I  have 
sought  to  make  that  verse  as  fluid  and  as  various 
in  movement  as  the  types  of  alexandrine  in  my 
originals.     When  the  prosodic  contour  of  a  poem. 


however,  depended  definitely  upon  the  contrast  of 
alexandrines  with  longer  or  shorter  verses,  I  have 
preserved  the  exact  syllabic  lengths.  In  lyrical 
measures  the  aim  must  be,  of  course,  to  hear  the 
characteristic  music,  to  transfer  this  and  to  follow 
its  modulations  from  line  to  line  and  stanza  to 
stanza. 

But  these  are  only  the  external  properties  of 
form.  What  characterises  a  poet,  above  all  else, 
is  the  way  he  uses  his  medium,  his  precise  and 
unique  method  of  moulding  his  language — in  re- 
spect both  of  diction  and  rhythm — for  the  expres- 
sion of  his  personal  sense  of  life.  It  is  here  that 
the  translator  comes  upon  his  hardest  task.  For 
he  should  try,  hopeless  as  that  may  seem,  to  use  his 
medium  of  speech  in  a  given  translation  even  as 
the  original  poet  used  his  own.  The  translated 
poem,  in  brief,  should  be  such  as  the  original  poet 
would  have  written  if  the  translator's  language 
had  been  his  native  one. 

I  am  quite  aware  that,  in  the  sixty  translated 
poems  in  this  volume,  I  have  not  always  even  ap- 
proached my  own  ideal  of  what  a  translation  of 


via 


poetry  should  be.  But  to  have  attempted  the  task 
upon  such  principles  may,  of  itself,  not  be  without 
service  to  the  practice  of  the  art. 

For  my  critical  introduction  on  the  poets  of 
modern  France  I  have  no  such  apology  to  make. 
Critics  of  power  and  place  have  told  me  repeatedly 
how  wrong-headed  my  critical  method  is.  Let 
me  remind  them,  who  know  it  so  much  better  than 
I,  of  the  history  of  literature  and  of  criticism. 
For  if  that  history  makes  but  one  thing  admirably 
and  indisputably  clear  it  is  this :  In  every  age  the 
New  Poetry  and  the  New  Criticism  have  prevailed 
in  so  far  as  they  produced  excellent  work  accord- 
ing to  their  own  intentions  and  in  harmony  with 
their  own  aims.  In  every  age  the  critical  conser- 
vatives have  protested  in  the  name  of  eternal  prin- 
ciples which,  alas,  are  not  eternal  at  all.  And 
generally,  for  such  is  human  nature,  the  innova- 
tors in  art  and  thought  of  one  generation,  of  one 
decade  at  times,  have  become  the  conservatives  of 
the  next.  In  another  ten  or  fifteen  years  I  may 
myself  be  frowning  upon  a  still  newer  criticism,  a 
still  newer  art.  .  .  .  But  today  I  am  in  the  right, 


not  of  my  own  desert,  but  through  the  ways  of 
the  World  Spirit.  .  .  . 

LuDWiG  Lewisohn. 
New  York  City, 
January,  1918. 


CONTENTS 

Preface,  v 

INTRODUCTION 

I    The  Sources  of  the  New  Poetry,  i ^"^ 

II     Forerunners  and  Founders  of  Symbolism,  id. 
i     a)  Charles  Baudelairer-i^^-- — 
1/  h)  Paul  Verlaine  ^- 

/  c)  Stephane  Ma  liar  me 
.    d)  Gustave  Kahn 

III  The  Triumph  of  Symbolism,  28 

a)  fimile  Verhaeren 

b)  Henri  de  Regnier 

c)  Jean    Moreas — Francis    Viele-Griffin — Stuart 

Merrill — Albert    Samain — Remy   de   Gour- 
mont 

d)  The  Minors 

IV  The  Later  Forces  in  French  Poetry,  53 

a)  Francis  Jammes 

b)  Paul  Fort 

c)  Late  Romantics  and  Naturalists 

d)  The  Youngest  Group 

e)  Conclusion . 

THE  POETS  OF  MODERN  FRANCE 

Stephane  Mallarme 

I    apparition,  73 

[xi] 


Paul  Verlaine 

ii  my  familiar  dream,  74 

iii  sentimental  dialogue,  75 

iv  the  goodly  song,  77 

v  a  song  without  words,  78 

vi  another  song  without  words,  79 

vii  late  wisdom,  80 

Arthur  Rimbaud 

viii    the  sleeper  in  the  valley,  81 

Georges  Rodenbach 

IX      IN  SMALL  TOWNS,  82 
fiMILE    VeRHAEREN 

x  the  mill,  83 

xi  november,  85. 

xii  the  poor,  88 

xiii  life,  90 

Jean  Moreas 

xiv    o  little  fairies  .  .  .  ,  92 
xv    a  young  girl  speaks,  93 
xvi    stanzas,  94 

Jules  Laforgue 

xvii    another  book  .  .  .  ,  96 
Henri  de  Regnier 

xviii    the  fair  hands,  97 

xix    scene  at  dusk,  99 

xx     a  lesser  ode,  101 

XXI      INSCRIPTION  FOR  A  CITY'S  GATE  OF  WARRIORS, 
103 

xxii    on  the  shore,  105 
xxiii    the  forest,  i06 
xxiv    chrysilla,  i08 

Francis  Viele-Griffin 

xxv    others  will  come,  io9 
XXVI     'tis  time  for  us  to  say  good  night,  1 10 
[xii] 


GUSTAVE  KaHN 

XXVII      SONG,    111 
XXVIII      PROVEN9E,    112 

Stuart  Merrill 

XXIX      AGAINST  THY  KNEES    ...,114 

xxx    the  promise  of  the  year,  ii6 

Maurice  Maeterlinck 

xxxi     the  seven  daughters  of  orlamonde,  ii8 
xxxii    i  have  sought  .  .  .  ,  ii9 

Remy  De  Gourmont 
xxxiii     the  snow,  120 
xxxiv    the  exile  of  beauty,  121 

Albert  Samain 

xxxv    evening,  1 23 
xxxvi    pannyre  of  the  golden  heels,  i24 

Edmond  Rostand 

XXXVII      THE    drummer,    I25 

Francis  Jammes 

XXXVIII      THAT    thou    ART    POOR   .    .    .    ,    I27 
XXXIX      THE  TRAINED  ass,   1  29 

xl     the  child  reads  an  almanac,  i3o 
xli    in  autumn,  i3i 

Charles  Guerin 

xlii    bright  hair,  i33 

Henry  Bataille 

xliii    the  wet  month,  i34 

Paul  Fort 

xliv    the  dead  girl,  i35 
xlv    images  of  our  dreams,  i36 
xlvi    idyll,  137 
xlvii    bell  of  dawn,  i39 

XLVIII      HORIZONS,  I4I 

[xiii] 


Pierre  Louys 

xLix    PEGASUS,  142 

Camille  Mauclair 

l    presences,  i43 
li    the  minute,  i44 

Henri  Barbusse 

lii    the  letter,  i45 

Fernand  Gregh 

liii     doubt,  146 

Paul  Souchon 

liv     elegy  at  noon,  i48 

Henry  Spiess 

Lv    hands,  149 

-^Iaurice  Magre 

Lvi     the  coquetry  of  men,  151 

Leo  Larguier 

lvii    when  i  am  old  ...,153 

Charles  Vildrac 

LVIII      if  ONE  WERE  TO  KEEP    .    .    .    ,    I55 

Georges  Duhamel 

Lix    annunciation,  158 

£mile  Despax 

lx     ultima,  159 

General  Bibliography,  163 

Biographical   and   Bibliographical    Notes   on 
THE  Thirty  Poets,  169 

Index  of  First  Lines  in  French  and  English, 
195 

[xiv] 


INTRODUCTION 


INTRODUCTION 
I 

THE    SOURCES    OF    THE    NEW    POETRY 

Le  Poete  dolt  etre  le  maitre 
absolu  des  formes  de  la  Vie,  et  non 
en  etre  Tesclave  comme  les  Realistes 
et  les  Natiiralistes. 

Stuart  Merrill 

The  struggle  of  man,  however  blind  and  stum- 
bling, however  checked  by  tribal  rage  and  tribal 
terror,  is  toward  self-hood.  This  truth  is  super- 
ficially assented  to,  it  has  become  a  glib  common- 
place to  the  sociologist:  it  has  really  penetrated 
only  a  few  rare  and  lonely  minds.  The  majority, 
simple  and  learned,  talks  of  individualism  and 
cries  out  upon  the  plainest  implications  of  its  own 
doctrine.  Not  only  in  life,  but  also  in  art.  Yet 
the  history  of  literature,  and  especially  of  poetry, 
illustrates  nothing  in  the  history  of  the  mind  more 

[1] 


cle4flyi/.h^;thl^::  tl^/pang  of  beauty,  the  exalta- 
tion  in  truth,  the  vision  of  the  tragedy  of  life  arise, 
in  the  fullest  sense,  only  when  the  individuar lib- 
erates himself  from  the  tribe  and  faces  the  uni- 
verse alone.  Tribal  lays,  still  largely  communal 
in  diction  arid  metre,  receive — as  in  the  Odyssey 
or  the  Nibelungenlied — an  immortal  accent  from 
the  voice  of  a  nameless  personal  redactor  and  the 
rude  legends  of  the  Latian  tribe  from  the  melan- 
choly beauty  of  Vergil's  soul.  The  metrical  ro- 
mances of  the  Middle  Ages,  on  the  contrary,  are 
scarcely  distinguishable  one  from  the  other,  and 
even  so  cultivated  an  age  as  the  Renaissance  illus- 
trates in  its  faded  sonnet-cycles  the  dominance  of 
a  tribal  convention.  Such  verse  becomes  strangely 
hushed  and  inarticulate  in  the  course  of  time.  We 
Hsten  for  the  voice  of  a  man  and  hear  the  murmur 
of  the  tribe.  ... 

It  is,  in  poetry,  chiefly  a  matter  of  form,  of 
music.  The  tribal  verse-chant  is  rigid  in  charac- 
ter and  the  minstrels  are  more  than  nameless,  they 
are,  in  the  personal  sense,  voiceless.  The  philo- 
logist's speculations  in  regard  to  authorship  re- 
main mere  speculations.     There  is  very  little  of 

[2] 


the  personal  note  in  the  older  poetry  of  Europe, 
North  or  South.  Even  when  notable  personali- 
ties gradually  emerge — Dante,  Walther  von  der 
Vogelweide,  Chaucer,  Villon  —  the  humbler  sing- 
ers still  remain  the  voices  of  the  folk.  The  sec- 
ond stage  of  poetical  form,  the  stage  illustrated  by 
all  the  great  historic  literatures,  presents  tradition 
modified  by  personality.  The  forms  are  limited 
in  number  and  in  character.  But  into  each  form 
the  individual  poet  pours  or  tries  to  pour  the 
unique  music  of  his  soul.  That  union  of  fixed 
form  and  personal  accent  is  illustrated  by  the  his- 
tory of  the  hexameter  in  Latin,  the  alexandrine  in 
French,  the  Spenserian  stanza,  blank  verse  and  the 
heroic  couplet  in  English  poetry.  And  the  con- 
servative forces  in  modern  poetry  and  criticism 
still  point  to  this  method — the  traditional  form 
modified  by  the  personal  accent — as  the  only 
sound  and  noble  method  of  poetical  creation. 
Such,  in  effect,  is  the  essential  view  of  the  critic 
who  will  not  look  at  "free  verse"  not  because  it  is 
poor,  but  because  it  is  ''free,"  who,  in  another  field, 
condemns  the  imaginative  creations  of  a  great 
dramatist  for  not  being  in  a  fixed  and  traditional 

[3] 


sense — plays.  The  echoes  of  this  critic  are  all 
about  us:  'It's  beautiful,  but  it  isn't  poetry!" 
*lt's  powerful,  but  it  isn't  a  play!"  As  though, 
in  some  quite  transcendental  sense,  there  were  a 
divine,  Platonic,  arch-typal  idea  of  poetry,  of 
draiiia,  which  it  is  the  duty  of  the  artist  to  seek,  at 
least,  to  approach.  In  art,  as  in  morals,  as  in 
state-craft,  the  timorous  Absolutist  clings  to  his 
Idea,  his  formula,  as  the  permanent  and  abiding 
element  in  the  flux  of  concrete  things.  He  does 
not  see  that  the  abiding  is  in  the  trend  to  finer 
types,  to  freer  and  more  personal  kinds  of  self- 
realisation,  is,  in  fact,  in  that  dark  angel  of  his 
dreams,  man's  will  to  change. 

The  last  stage  in  the  development  of  poetic  form 
comes  when,  under  the  stress  of  the  modern  world, 
the  poet's  struggle  toward  the  realisation  of  his 
self-hood  becomes  so  keen  that  he  cannot  use  the 
traditional  forms  any  more  at  all.  He  must  find 
his  own  form :  his  impulse  is  so  new  and  strange 
that  it  must  create  its  own  music  or  be  silent.  Not 
because  he  does  not  love  and  revere  the  forms  of 
the  masters.  But  he  cannot  express  himself 
through  them;  he  cannot,  to  speak  in  a  homely 

[4] 


way,  turn  around  in  them.  They  come  trailing 
so  much  glorj.  And  the  glory  is  alien  to  his  very 
urgent  and  immediate  business.  The  very  splen- 
dor of  their  associations,  the  throb  of  the  music  of 
a  thousand  voices,  nobler,  perhaps,  than  his,  par- 
alyse him.  He  is  like  a  stripling  running  aijacc  1 
in  the  brocades  of  an  anc*/  nt  king.  .  .  .  Yet  he 
must  be  himself  or  he  is  nothing  or,  at  most,  an 
echo.  Such  is  the  sound  and  legitimate  reason 
for  those  experiments  in  free  verse,  in  rhythmic 
and  rimed  prose,  which  have  arisen  in  every  fully 
equipped  modern  literature  within  the  past  twen- 
ty-five years.  I  must  not  say  that  thus  a  new  and 
personal  kind  of  truth  in  beauty  has  yet  been  quite 
achieved.  But  the  impulse  is  right  and  neces- 
sary, and  the  aim  the  only  one  left  to  the  modern 
poet.  Hence  while  official  criticism  sits,  as  every- 
where and  always,  amid  the  wreckage  of  its 
commandments  and  its  prophecies,  the  poets  of  the 
modem  world  have  gone  forth  in  search  of  a  new 
freedom  and  a  new  music. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  preceptist  critic,  the  abso- 
lutist in  criticism  with  his  laws  and  formulae  ante- 
cedent to  experience  and  to  art  which  grows  out  of 

[5] 


experience.  But  another  kind  of  critic  has  ap- 
peared and  has  been  heard.  And  one  sucTi,  the 
late  M.  Remy  de  Gourmont,  has  admirably 
summed  up  the  whole  matter:  'The  only  excuse 
that  a  man  has  for  writing  is  that  he  express  his 
own  self,  that  he  reveal  to  others  the  kind  of  world 
that  is  reflected  in  his  individual  mirror :  his  only 
excuse  is  that  he  be  original :  he  must  say  things 
not  said  before  and  say  them  in  a  form  not  formu- 
lated before.  He  must  create  his  own  sesthetic, 
— and  we  must  admit  as  many  sesthetics  as  there 
are  original  minds  and  judge  them  according  to 
what  they  are  and  not  according  to  what  they  are 
not." 

In  France,  as  elsewhere,  the  new  poetry  and  the 
new  criticism  sprang  from  very  deep  sources  in  the 
life  of  the  mind  and  corresponded  with  the  larger 
tendencies  of  the  new  age.  For  the  epoch  since 
the  Revolution  may  almost  be  divided — if  every 
formula  were  not  insufficient  and  a  little  empty — 
into  three  periods  of  struggle  for  the  three  kinds 
of  liberty  that  we  must  attain :  political,  intellec- 
tual, moral.     And  in  the  history  of  French  poetry 

[6] 


three  schools  interpret  closely  and  in  right  succes- 
sion these  three  phases.  To  the  Romantics  of 
France,  as  to  the  Romantics  of  England  (except 
Shelley)  freedom  was  primarily  an  outer  thing 
concerned  with  votes  and  governmental  action :  to 
the  Parnassiens  it  was  the  right  to  observe  the 
present  and  historic  world  objectively  and  let  the 
reason  draw  its  own  sombre  conclusions  from  that 
vision ;  to  the  Symbolists,  the  moderns,  it  is  more ; 
it  is  the  right  to  complete  realisation  of  one's  self- 
hood— which  includes  and  demands  economic  jus- 
tice— inaction  and  in  art.  It  is  that  new  idealism 
which,  to  quote  Gourmont  again,  ''means  the  free 
and  personal  development  of  the  intellectual  in- 
dividual in  the  intellectual  series." 

These  movements  are  general  and  European. 
One  need  adduce  no  external  influence  to  account 
for  their  appearance  in  any  of  the  great  literary 
nations,  least  of  all  in  the  self-contained  and  self- 
sufficient  intellectual  life  of  France.  Yet  it  seems 
very  certain  that  the  modern  movement  in  French 
poetry  drew  a  good  deal  of  its  deeper  guidance 
from  the  one  literature  in  which  Romanticism  had 
shown  little  if  any  interest  in  political  liberty,  but 

[7] 


very  much  in  that  of  personal  conduct,  of  specula- 
tion and  of  art.  Here  I  may  let  M.  de  Gourmont 
speak  once  more :  'In  relation  to  man,  the  thinking 
subject,  the  world,  all  that  is  external  to  the 
I,  exists  only  according  to  the  idea  of  it  which  he 
shapes  for  himself.  We  know  only  phenomena, 
we  reason  only  concerning  appearances :  all  truth 
in  itself  escapes  us:  the  essence  is  unapproachable. 
It  is  this  fact  which  Schopenhauer  has  popularised 
in  his  very  clear  and  simple  formula :  the  world  is 
my  representation."  The  French  Symbolists,  in 
other  words,  drew  their  doctrine  of  freedom  in  life 
and  art  partly,  at  least,  from  the  doctrine  of  the 
post-Kantian  idealists.  The  creative  self  that 
projects  the  vision  of  the  universe  stands  above  it 
and  need  not  be  bound  by  the  shadows  it  has  itself 
evoked.  The  inner  realities  became  the  supreme 
realities :  Maeterlinck  translated  the  Fragments  of 
Novalis;  Verhaeren  declared  that  the  ''immediate 
end  of  the  poet  is  to  express  himself."  The  em- 
phasis placed  upon  the  unique  and  creative  self 
might  possibly  be  attributed  to  the  Flemish  and 
hence  Germanic  temper  of  the  Belgian  poets. 
But  during  the  crucial  years  of  the  Symbolist 

[8] 


movement  the  same  view  was  shared  by  the  most 
purely  Latin  poets  who  used  the  French  tongue. 
In  his  excellent  monograph  on  Henri  de  Regnier, 
M.  Jean  de  Gourmont  speaks  of  this  matter 
in  unmistakable  terms:  "Symbolism  was  not,  at 
first,  a  revolution,  but  an  evolution  called  forth 
by  the  infiltration  of  new  philosophical  ideas. 
The  theories  of  Kant,  of  Schopenhauer,  of  Hegel 
and  Hartmann  began  to  spread  in  France:  the 
poets  were  fairly  intoxicated  by  them."  It  is  cu- 
rious to  note,  in  this  connection,  the  omission  of 
Fichte's  name.  But  the  young  men  of  eighteen 
hundred  and  eighty-five  were  not  exact  students 
and  thinkers.  They  simply  found  in  the  philoso- 
phy of  a  definite  school  and  age  a  vision  which  ac- 
corded with  their  own  innermost  feeling  concern- 
ing the  new  freedom  that  must  be  won  for  life  and 
for  its  close  and  intimate  expression  in  the  art  of 
poetry. 


[91 


II 

FORERUNNERS    AND    FOUNDERS    OF    SYMBOLISM 

"En  verite  il  n'y  a  pas  de  prose :  il  y  a 
Talphabet,  et  puis  des  vers  plus  ou  moins 
series,  plus  ou  moins  diffus." 

Stephane  Mallarm^ 

"Le  vers  libre,  au  lieu  d'etre,  comme 
Tancien  vers,  des  lines  de  prose  coupees 
par  des  rimes  regulieres,  doit  exister 
en  lui-meme  par  des  alliterations  de 
voyelles  et  de  consonnes  parentes." 

Gu  STAVE  Kahn 

The  young  men  of  eighteen  hundred  and  eighty- 
five  began,  as  was  natural,  by  an  energetic  rebel- 
lion against  the  dominant  school  of  poetry.  That 
school,  the  Parnassien,  cultivated,  as  everyone 
knows,  objectivity  of  vision,  sculpturesque  full- 
ness and  perfection  of  form,  a  completely  imper- 
sonal attitude.  It  had  been  practically  if  not 
officially  founded   when   Gautier  published  his 

[10] 


Emaux  et  Camees  in  1850,  it  had  shown  remark- 
able power  of  endurance ;  it  was  unshaken  by  the 
incomparable  notes  of  pure  lyricism  with  which 
Verlaine,  since  1868,  had  modified  his  partial  ac- 
ceptance of  its  own  technical  standards.  It 
counted  among  its  adherents  every  first-rate  talent 
that  had  come  to  maturity  toward  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  even,  again  with  certain 
modifications,  that  of  Charles  Baudelaire.  Its 
representative  poet  was  Leconte  de  Lisle.  And 
Leconte  de  Lisle  was  a  great  poet.  It  is  easier  to 
see  that  now  than  it  was,  perhaps,  twenty  years 
ago.  The  rich,  sonorous  verses  of  the  Pohnes  an- 
tiques  and  the  Poemes  barbares  seem  still  to 
march  as  with  the  ringing  mail  of  an  undefeated 
army.  And  in  every  mind  that  he  has  once  im- 
pressed remain  as  permanent  possessions  those 
images  in  stone  or  bronze  under  skies  of  agate  or 
drenched  in  radiance  which  he  embodied  in  the 
clang  and  thunder  of  his  verse.  But  there  was 
little  personal,  little  of  his  own  mind,  except  that 
one  proud  and  imperturbable  gesture ;  his  art  was, 
after  all,  decoration,  even  though  it  raised  the 
decorative      to      heroic      dimensions.  .  .  .  The 

[11] 


younger  generation  that  wanted  intimate,  con- 
crete truth,  subtle  and  personal,  not  large  and  gen- 
eral, that  wanted,  in  a  word,  not  elggu(pn£e^but 
lyricism,  inevitably  arose  against  him  and  his  fel- 
lows— against  the  rather  timid  naturalism  of 
Frangois  Coppee,  against  the  glittering  dexterity 
of  Teodore  de  Banville,  the  expounder  in  prac- 
tice and  criticism  of  the  Parnassien  technique. 
The  young  poets  of  the  time  turned,  among  the 
men  of  their  own  land  and  speech,  to  one  dead 
and  two  living  writers:  to  Charles  Baudelaire, 
Paul  Verlaine  and  Stephane  Mallarme. 

It  is  true  that  in  Les  Fleurs  du  Mai  (1857) 
Baudelaire's  verse  is  as  firmly  and  precisely 
moulded  as  any  Parnassien' s,  his  rimes  are  as  so- 
norous, his  stanzaic  structure  as  exact.  Only  in 
the  sweep  and  passionate  speed  of  perhaps  two 
pieces,  he  Balcon  and  Harmonie  du  soir: 

"Voici  venir  les  temps  ou  vibrant  sur  sa  tige 
Chaque  fleur  s'evapore  ainsi  qu'un  encensoir  . . ."  ^ 

is  there  a  new  cadence.     His  influence  upon  the 

*Lord  Alfred  Dougfes  translates  happily  if  freely: 

"This  is  the  hour  when  swinging  in  the  breeze, 
Each  flower  like  a  censor  sheds  its  sweet  «  .  ." 

[12] 


future  was  due  to  hisWbstancei  to  the  merciless 
revel ation  of  himself,  his  stubborn  ass^mlQajQiJiis 
strange  and  morbid  soul,  his  harsh  summon^to 
others  to  cast  aside  their  masks  of  moral  idealism 
and  confess  them^elves,his  pqnn),c;  ^nd  his  kin : 

"Hypocrite  lecteur — mon  semblable — mon  frere."^ 

It  was  due  to  his  belief  in  the  unexplored  wealth 
of  beauty  and  horror  of  the  subjective  self : 

"Homme,  nul  n'a  sonde  le  fond  de  tes  abimes  •  .  ."^  iitj^-'^,^'^^'^'*^- 

And  that  is,  in  a  very  real  sense,  what  the  Symbo- 
lists, the  moderns,  set  out  to  do.  Finally,  by  some 
strange  prevision,  or  else  in  a  moment  of  imagina- 
tive caprice,  he  struck  off  in  a  single  sonnet,  Car- 
res pondances  (which  has  been  quoted  again  and 
again,)  the  subtlest  doctrine  of  the  Symbolists: 

"La  nature  est  un  temple  ou  de  vivants  piliers 
Laissent  parfois  sortir  des  confuses  paroles ; 
L'homme  y  passe  a  travers  des  forets  de  symboles 
Qui  I'observent  avec  des  regards  familiers  .  .  ."  ^ 

1  "Hypocritical  reader — my  fellow — my  brother !" 

2  VM^n,  no  one  has  sounded^^e  botttoro  of  thy  al^ysspfL," 

2  Nature  Is  a  temple  whereinTliving  colmuns  sometimes  let  con- 
fused words  escape ;  man  wanders  there  across  forests  of  symbols 
which  observe  him  with  familiar  glances." 

[13] 


To  capture  these  obscure  but  revealing  hints — 
that,  too,  was  part  of  the  symbolist  programme. 

But  the  influence  of  Baudelaire  upon  the  living 
poets  of  France  v^as  slight  compared  to  that  ex- 
erted by  one  far  stranger  and  far  greater  than  him- 
self, by  Paul  Verlaine  (1844-1896).  For  Ver- 
laine  was  not  only  almost  their  contemporary — 
the  wayward,  childlike,  mystical  creature,  giving 
them,  as  on  a  memorable  occasion  he  did  to  George 
Moore,  some  divine  sonnet  scribbled  in  bed  in  a 
fetid  slum:  he  was  also  the  purest  lyrical  singer 
that  France  had  ever  known.  The  most  musical 
songs  of  the  Romantics  have  a  touch  of  self-con- 
sciousness and  eloquence  compared  to  his.  Per- 
haps an  infusion  of  Northern  blood  (he  was  born 
at  Metz)  gave  him  the  soul  of  a  minstrel  and  a 
child;  itieft  him  Latin  enough  to  be,  with  all  hi3 
unrestmin^djyricjsnv^a^^^ 

even  learned  technician.  He  mastered  the  Par- 
nassien  method  in  his  youth  and  used  it  exquis- 
itely. But  even  in  the  early  and  correct  Poemes 
saturniens  (1866)  there  is  the  unforgettable 
Chanson  d'Automne  with  its  strange  sob,  with  that 
note  of  the  ineffable,  the  beyond  in  human  longing 

[14] 


and  regret— ^4udxJEi£nch  poetry  had  iiever»  pr 
never,  at^least^^o  simuIjL-and  piercingly  heard. 
Eight  years  later  had  come  the  Romances  sans 
ParoleSy  the  highest  point,  probably,  in  Verlaine's 
lyrical  achievement,  and  again  seven  years  later 
Sagesse.  But  even  in  the  days  of  his  declining 
power,  in  the  collections  published  when  the  mod- 
em movement  was  fully  under  way — Amour 
(1888),  Parallelement  (1889)— he  kept  the  mar- 
vellous gift  of  suddenly  lifting  the  hearer  of  his 
verse  into  an  infinite  of  imaginative  pathqs: 

"Mon   pauvre  enfant,   ta   voix   dans   le   Bois   de   Bou- 
logne •  .  .  "  1 

or  of  imaginative  splendor: 

"Et,  6  ces  voix  d'enfants  chantant  dans  la  coupole."  ^ 

"The  infinite],  .  •  !  In  that  word  lies  the  secret 
of  Verlaine,  of  his  difference  from  all  the  past  of 
French  poetry,  of  his  power  over  its  present  and 
future.  He  does  not  exhaust  his  subject  with  the 
glowing  but  appeasable  passion  of  the  Romantics ; 
he  does  not  paint  his  vision  in  the  hard,  luminous 

1  '*My  poor  child,  thy  voice  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  .  .  ." 

2  "And,  O  those  children's  voices  singing  in  the  cupola." 

[15] 


colors  of  the  Parnassiens;  he  strikes  a  discreet  and 
troubling  note  that  leaves  its  vibrations  in  the 
heart  and  in  the  nerves  forever.  His  poetry,  as  he 
was  well  aware,  withdrew  deliberately  from  any 
relation  to  the  plastic  arts ;  it  is  full  of  images  ad- 
dressed to  the  ear;  it  seeks  magic  rather  than 
beauty;  it  asks  our  tears  rather  than  our  admira- 
tion. Words  which  the  Parnassiens  had  used  like 
the  brilliant  stone  fragments  of  an  Italian  enam- 
eller  were  to  Verlaine  notes  in  the  music  of  thought 
and  passion;  it  is  in  this  sense  that  he  called  his 
finest  volume:  Songs  Without  Words.  All  this 
is,  of  course,  merely  saying  that  Verlaine  is  a  lyri- 
cal poet  of  the  type  of  Shelley  or  Heine.  But  as 
such  his  achievement  was  quite  new  and  revolu- 
tionary in  the  literature  of  France. 

Less  revolutionary  was  his  influence  upon  form. 
He  was  bitter  against  the  wrongs  done  by  the  Par- 
nassiens in  the  name  of  rime;  he  protested  against 
their  sonorousness  as  he  did  against  their  brilliance 
— ''pas  de  couleur^  rien  que  la  nuance'' — ^he  used 
the  ''rythmes  impairs,''  verses  of  seven,  eleven  and 
thirteen  syllables ;  he  strove  to  make  the  music  of 
verse  subtler,  more  ductile,  more  quivering.     He 

[16] 


cannot  be  said  to  have  introduced  any  fundamen- 
tal change.  Yet  everywhere  among  the  modern 
poets  is  heard  the  music  of  those  pale  vowels  of  his, 
those  trembling  verses,  as  in  the  lines  called  Men- 
uet  which  made  the  reputation  of  M.  Fernand 
Gregh  because  they  were  mistaken  for  Verlaine's : 

"Chanson   frele   du   clavecin, 
Notes  greles,  fuyant  essaim 
Qui  s'efface  .  .  .  "  ^ 

The  direct  master  of  the  modems,  however,  and 
the  acknowledged  founder  of  the  Symbolist  school 
was  Stephane  Mallarme  (1842-1898),  a  man  of 
a  very  thin  though  very  fine  vein  of  authentic  gen- 
ius. His  power  over  the  younger  men  of  his  day 
was  due  not  wholly,  not  even  primarily,  to  his 
sheaf  of  mystical  and  undulating  verse.  He  had 
reflected  closely  and  deeply  upon  the  sources  of 
poetry  and  upon  the  nature  of  the  poetic  imagina- 
tion; he  communicated  the  results  of  his  thought 
not  only  in  his  critical  fragments  but  in  exquisite 
monologues  during  those  famous  Tuesday  eve- 
nings of  his  in  the  Rue  de  Rome  which  became  an 

1  "Fragile  song  of  the  harpsichord,  pale,  sharp  notes,  a  fleeing 
swarm  that  fades  away  ..." 

C17] 


institution  in  the  middle  eighties.  There  gath- 
ered to  be  with  him  ''in  that  drawing  room  faintly- 
lit  to  which  the  shadowy  corners  gave  the  aspect 
of  a  temple  and  an  oratory,"  and  to  hear  his  ''se- 
ductive and  lofty  doctrine  on  poetry  and  art" 
Kahn  and  Ghil  and  Laforgue,  Viele-Griffin  and 
Regnier,  Stuart  Merrill  and  Louys  and  Mauclair, 
John  Payne  and  Arthur  Symons  and  a  group  of 
lesser  talents.  "We  passed  unforgettable  hours 
there,"  writes  M.  Albert  Mockel,  "the  best,  doubt- 
less, that  we  shall  ever  know.  .  .  .  And  he  who 
made  us  welcome  there  was  the  absolute  type  of 
poet,  the  heart  than  can  love,  the  brow  that  can 
understand,  inferior  to  nothing,  yet  disdaining 
nothing,  for  he  discerned  in  each  thing  a  secret 
teaching  or  an  image  of  Beauty."  The  tributes 
of  the  younger  men  who  heard  him  thus  form  a 
small  body  of  very  beautiful  writing  and  include 
noble  verses  of  memorial  or  praise  by  VieM-Grif- 
fin,  by  Louys  and  by  Regnier.  The  latter  de- 
scribes in  the  fine  dedicatory  sonnet  to  La  Cite  des 
Eaux  the  external  aims  of  other  poets  and  then 
turns  to  Mallarme : 


[18] 


"Mais  vous,  Maitre,  certain  que  toute  gloire   est  nue, 
Vous  marchiez  dans  la  vie  et  dans  la  verite 
Vers  rinvisible  etoile  en  vous-meme  apparue."  ^ 

I  have  tried  elsewhere  to  give  a  close  interpreta- 
tion of  the  symbolist  doctrine  ^  which  is  perma- 
nently connected  with  the  name  of  Mallarme  and 
has  shaped  not  only  the  work  of  the  maturer  of 
the  living  poets  of  France  but  even  that  of  the 
youngest  among  them.  *  It  comes,  in  plainest ; 
terms,  to  this:  that  the  poet  is  to  use  the  details  of 
the  phenomenal  world  exclusively  as  symbols  of 
that  inner  or  spiritual  reality  which  it  is  his  aim  to 
project  in  artti  In  this  there  is,  of  course,  nothing 
absolutely  new.  Poets,  especially  lyrical  poets, 
have,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  always  done  that  quite 
instinctively.  Images  drawn  from  the  world 
which  the  senses  perceive  are  our  only  means  of 
communicating  the  nameless  things  of  the  inner 
life.  ^  What  was  and  is  relatively  new  in  the  doc- 
trine and  the  practice  of  the  Symbolists  is  their 

1  "But  you,  Master,  assured  that  all  glory  is  bare,  you  trod  the 
ways  of  life  and  truth  toward  that  invisible  star  arisen  in  your- 
self." 

^Vide:  Lewisohn.  The  Modern  Drama  (Second  Edition). 
Chapter  V. 

[19] 


sTihtle  anH  roTit^rJous  cultivation  of  this  method, 
their  rejection  (in  the  heat  of  the  reaction  against 
the  Parnassiens)  of  the  objective  as  utterly  devoid 
of  significance,  of  truth,  even  of  existence,  their 
search  for  the  strange  and  mysterious,  the  unob- 
served and  unheard  of  in  the  shifting  visions  of 
the  world.*.  .  .  But  I  shall  let  Mallarme  speak 
briefly  for  himself:  "To  name  an  object  is  to  sup- 
press three-fourths  of  the  delight  of  a  poem  which 
consists  of  the  happiness  of  divining  little  by  lit- 
tle; poetic  vision  arises  from  suggestion  (le  sug^ 
gerer  voila  le  reve).  '  It  is  the  perfect  use  of  this 
mystery  which  constitutes  the  symbol,  to  evoke 
little  by  little  an  object  in  order  to  show  a  state  of 
soul,  or,  inversely,  to  disengage  from  it  a  state  of 
soul  by  a  series  of  decipherings."^  To  this  may  be 
added  a  passage  from  the  famous  manifesto  which 
Jean  Moreas,  in  his  symbolist  days,  published  in 
Le  Figaro  (September  i8,  1886) : -^'Symbolist 
poetry  seeks  to  clothe  the  idea  in  a  sensible  form 
which,  nevertheless,  shall  not  be  its  final  end  and 
aim,  but  shall  merely  serve  to  express  the  idea 
which  remains  subjective."  •  In  this  sentence  ap- 

[20] 


pears  very  clearly,  so  clearly  as  perhaps  nowhere 
else,  the  Symbolist's  reaction  against  naturalism 
in  both  art  and  thought,  against  the  ''heavy  and  the 
weary  weight"  of  an  objective  world,  its  insist- 
ence upon  the  freedom  of  the  creative  soul.  .  .  . 
Mallarme's  personal  teaching  and  practice  was,  of 
course,  more  esoteric.  He  dreamed,  like  Wagner, 
whom  Verlaine  and  all  the  Symbolists  adored,  of  a 
synthesis  of  the  arts.  A  poem  was  to  partake  of 
music,  of  the  plastic  arts,  of  philosophic  thought. 
To  each  of  his  verses,  in  the  excellent  interpreta- 
tion of  M.  Teodore  de  Wyzewa,  "he  sought  to  at- 
tach several  superimposed  senses."  Each  was  to 
1;),^  an  imfigej  ^  thought^  a  n^t^  ^f  minir. — a^irag- 
ment  of  that  large  and  mystic  harmony  in  which 

tfTp  th\^pr  siT^djj^f  wprlH  hp  fhink-f;  afp'nnp     .    .    . 

It  was  all  essentially,  I  repeat,  a  liberation  from 
the  scientific,  the  objective,  the  relentless  reality 
of  earth  to  which — in  the  doctrine  of  the  Natural- 
ists— our  souls  are  in  bondage ;  it  was  a  react:ioi\^Qf 
personality,  of  the  freedom  and  splendor  of  the^ 
inner  self,  it  was,  as  I  said  in  starting,  the  mpdera 
striving  toward  self -hood. 

[21] 


The  new  spirit  of  poetry  demanded  a  new  form. 
To  the  discovery  of  this  new  form  Mallarme  had 
contributed  rather  less  than  even  Verlaine.  Both 
used,  with  whatever  new  cadences  within  the  verse, 
with  whatever  new  lightness  and  brightness  of 
rime,  the  traditional  methods  of  French  prosody: 
an  identical  number  of  syllables  in  the  corre- 
sponding lines  of  a  given  poem,  the  rigid  alterna- 
tion of  masculine  and  femine  rimes,  a  rather  strict- 
limitation  in  the  number  and  character  of  stan- 
zaic  forms.  From  this  description  it  is  clear  that 
the  vers  litre  invented  and  cultivated  by  the  Sym- 
bolists did  not  mean  any  extraordinary  liberty  of 
versification  from  the  point  of  view  of  any  pros- 
ody but  that  of  France.  To  the  poets  of  Eng- 
land and  Germany  an  arbitrary  or  personal  varia- 
tion of  line  length,  as  in  the  Pindarics  from  Cowley 
on,  entire  freedom  of  riming,  the  building  of  qua- 
trains on  a  single  rime  had  been  immemorial  pos- 
sessions. They  had,  in  truth,  long  gone  beyond 
the  earliest  innovations  of  the  Symbolists.  For 
neither  Kahn,  Laforgue  nor  Viele-GrifRn  ever  dis- 
carded rime  wholly.  But  that  had  been  done,  to 
go  back  no  farther,  by  Sou  they  and  Shelley,  by     / 

[22] 


Goethe  and  Novalis,  by  Heine  and  Matthew  Ar- 
nold, t^  The  early  vers  libre^  then,  was  simply  a 
flexible  and  rather  undulating  form  of  lyric  or  odic 
verse,  following  in  its  cadences  the  development, 
the  rise  and  fall,  of  the  poet's  mood,  furnishing 
in  its  swaying  harmonies  an  orchestration  to 
thought  and  passion.  /^Lyrical  pieces  of  this  char- 
acter are  Verhaeren's  November  (xi),  Regnier's 
Scene  at  Dusk  (xix),  Kahn's  Provenge 
(xxviii),  and  Gourmont's  The  Exile  of  Beauty^ 
(xxxiv). 

'To  whom,  then,"  asks  M.  Remy  de  Gourmont, 
''do  we  owe  vers  Ubre?'"  And  he  answers:  "To 
Rimbaud  whose  Illuminations  appeared  in  La 
Vogue  in  1886,  to  Jules  Laforgue  who  at  the  same 
period  and  in  the  same  precious  little  review — 
which  M.  Kahn  was  editing — printed  Leg  end  e  and 
Solo  de  Lune^  and,  finally,  to  M.  Kahn  himself." 
It  would  seem,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  the  inno- 
vations of  Rimbaud  were  slight  and  that  Laforgue 
knew  of  M.  Kahn's  theories  for  many  years.  The 
latter's  Les  Palais  Nomades  (1887)  was,  in  addi- 
tion, the  first  actually  published  volume  of  versY^^^^r^ 
libre;  it  made  a  great  stir  in  both  France  and  Bel- 

[23] 


gium  and  was  directly  responsible  for  the  prosodic 
development  that  continued  with  Viele-GrifEn's 
Joies  (1889),  with  its  significant  preface,  Regn- 
ier's  Poemes  anciens  et  romanesques  (1890), 
and  Verhaeren's  A u  bord de la  route  {^\%^\).  No 
further  innovations  in  French  versification  were 
made  until  quite  recently,  except  by  M.  de  Regnier 
when  he  almost  though  not  quite  abandoned  rime 
in  the  charming  Odelettes  of  his  volume  Les  Jeux 
rustiques  et  divins  ( 1 897  ) . 

There  is  available,  at  least  at  present,  no  evi- 
dence of  any  direct  foreign  influence  upon  the  rise 
of  free  verse  in  French  poetry.  Nor,  were  there 
such  evidence,  would  I  be  willing  to  attach  any  sig- 
nificance to  it.  A  great  many  sins  have  been  com- 
mitted by  the  scholarly  search  for  influences.  A 
saner  and  more  philosophic  view  of  the  history  of 
literature  regards  the  appearance  of  new  sources 
of  inspiration  and  new  forms  of  expression  as  out- 
growths of  those  larger  spiritual  forces  that  are 
wont  to  affect  at  the  same  time  or  almost  at  the 
same  time  groups  of  people  that  have  reached  a 
like  stage  of  development.  The  modern  emer- 
gence of  the  free  personality  from  the  merely  po- 

[24] 


litical  individual — the  voter  who  in  his  day  suc- 
ceeded the  tribesman  and  the  slave — accounts  for 
the  change  in  the  passions  and  the  forms  of  poetry 
in  Goethe  and  in  Shelley,  in  Whitman  and  Henley, 
in  Richard  Dehmel  and  in  Henri  de  Regnier. 
Thus,  too,  it  is  interesting  rather  than  important 
when  M.  Kahn  says :  '1  am  persuaded  and  certain, 
as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  that  the  influence  of  mu- 
^ic  led  us  to  the  perception  of  a  poetic  form  at 
once  more  fluid  and  precise,  and  that  the  musical 
sensations  of  our  youth  (not  only  Wagner,  but 
Beethoven  and  Schubert)  had  their  influence  upon 
my  conception  of  verse  when  I  was  capable  of  ut- 
tering a  personal  song."  "A  personal  song" — 
that  ambition  is  the  secret  of  the  age  and  the  move- 
ment. *The  poet  shall  obey  his  personal 
rhythm,"  M.  Viele-Griffin  repeats.  'The  poet's 
only  guide  is  rhythm ;  not  a  rhythm  that  has  been 
learned,  that  is  crippled  by  a  thousand  rules  which 
others  have  invented,  but  a  personal  rhythm  that 
he  must  find  within  himself."  Thus  M.  Adolph 
Rette  summed  up  the  matter  so  early  as  1893  in 
the  Merciire  de  France.  Thus  only,  one  may  add, 
did  these  poets  hope  to  achieve  that  "personal 

[25] 


art"  which,  according  to  Gourmont,  "is  the  only 
art." 

In  the  works  of  the  earliest  practitioners  of  free 
verse,  gifted  poets  as  they  all  are,  the  new  form 
had,  at  times,  a  timbre  that  was  merely  quaint 
or  an  air  of  conscious  violence.  The  personal 
rhythm,  especially  in  the  structure  of  the  stanza — 
or,  rather,  verse-paragraph — was  apt,  in  the  days 
of  protest  and  polemic,  to  be  more  personal  than 
rhythmic.  In  the  hands  of  those  members  of  the 
school,  however,  who  were  capable  of  a  notable 
inner  development,  the  new  vers  lihre  became  an 
instrument  of  poetic  expression  that  gave  not  only 
a  new  freedom  but  an  ampler  and  more  spiritual 
music  to  French  verse :  an  instrument  at  once  glan^ 
gent  and  sonorous,  capable  of  both  subtle  grace 
and  large  majesty.  It  has  survived  the  reactions 
and  new  experiments  to  be  chronicled  later;  it  is 
used  by  so  recent  a  poet  as  M.  Fernand  Gregh  as 
the  vehicle  of  what  is,  perhaps,  his  most  admirable 
single  poem  3e  vis,  .  .  .    : 

"Mais  a  mon  tour  j'aurai  connu  le  gout  chaud  de  la  vie: 
J'aurai  mire  dans  ma  prunelle, 
Petite  minute  eblouie, 

[26] 


La  grande  lumiere  eternelle : 

Mais  j'aurai  bonne  joie  au  grand  festin  sacre; 

Que  voudrais-je  de  plus^ 

J'aurai  vecu  .  .  . 

Et  je  mourrai."  ^ 

That  has  neither  the  stormy  power  of  Verhaeren's 
La  Foule  nor  the  noble  melancholy  of  Regnier's 
Le  Vase.  But  any  one  sensitive  to  the  music  of 
the  language  in  which  it  is  written  must  feel  its 
native  and  unforced  beauty,  the  liquid  pathos  of__ 
its  lingering  cadences. 

1  "But  in  my  turn  I  shall  have  known  the  warm  taste  of  life: 
I  shall  have  mirrored  in  my  eye-ball,  a  brief  and  dazzling 
minute,  the  great  eternal  light;  but  I  shall  have  a  goodly  joy  in 
the  great,  sacred  feast;  what  more  would  I  have  wished?  I 
shall  have  lived  .  .  .  And  I  shall  die." 


[27] 


Ill      j 

THE    TRIUMPH    OF    SYMBOLISM 

"La  nature  parait  sculpter 

Un  visage  nouveau  a  son  eternite ; 

Tout  bouge — et  Ton  dirait  les  horizons  en  marche." 

fiMILE    VeRHAEREN 

"...  EUe  me  dit;  Sculpte  la  pierre 

Selon  la  forme  de  mon  corps  en  tes  pensees, 

Et  fais  sourire  au  bloc  ma  face  claire  ..." 

Henri  de  Regnier 

The  movement  was  founded;  the  instrument  of 
expression  was  forged.  There  arose  from  it  two 
poets  of  high  and  memorable  character,  the  two 
I  have  already  named:  Emile  Verhaeren  (1855- 
1915)  and  Henri  de  Regnier  (b.  1864).  Though 
M.  Verhaeren  died  but,  as  it  were,  the  other  day, 
and  M.  de  Regnier  is  just  arriving  at  the  ripest 
period  of  his  own  genius,  there  can  be  no  reason- 
able doubt  that  these  two,  at  least,  of  the  French 

[28] 


poets  who  started  as  Symbolists  have  permanently 
enriched  the  literature  of  the  world. 

They  resemble  each  other  in  nothing  but  in  the 
language  they  use  and  in  certain  new  liberties  of 
external  form.  As  men  and  as  artists  they  are 
deeply  divided.  Verhaeren  is  a  man  of  the  North, 
of  wi]d  cries  and  myst^^^^  houadles§  J?:^- 

altations  and  agprxies.  %  There  is  a  touch  of  fever 
in  his  visions  both  of  his  Flemish  country-side  and 
of  the  turbulent  modern  cities  that  he  loved.  He 
sought  finally  to  release  his  tortured  soul  from  the 
bondage  of  self  by  sinking  it,  merging  it — not  like 
the  Germanic  mystics  of  old  in  God  or  nature,  but 
in  that  vast  brotherhood  of  pain  and  effort  that 
bears  the  burden  and  the  heat  of  an  industrial  civ- 
ilisation. \^  He  was,  as  M.  Leon  Balzalgette,  one 
of  his  most  intelligent  biographers,  says,  ''a  bar- 
barian whom  fate  doomed  to  paint  his  visions  by 
the  help  of  a  language  made  rather  to  translate 
the  delicate  and  refined  sensations  of  extreme  civ- 
ilisation." He  had  no  sense  of  "measure,"  "tra- 
dition," "good  taste."  He  is  "with  his  poetical, 
powers  a  man  of  the  North,  just  as  truly  as  Car- 
lyle.  ..."     That   is   well   and   tellingly   put. 

[29] 


f^  From  Verhaeren's  work  there  arises  finally  the  vi^ 

sionof  a  universe  in  tumult,  not  wholly  free  from 

chaos,  midway  between  formlessness  and  form; 

^against  a  black  and  desolate  background  flare  the 

/silver^isions  of  the  soul  and  the  scarlet  fires  of 

'steel  furnaces.     In  this  universe  the  poet  wanders 

seeking  rest,  union,  finding  it  at  last  in  an  act  of 

complete  acce]3tarice,  of  utter  oneness  with  the 

forces  that  shape  the  world|  .  .  . 

His  style  is,  necessarily,  wholly  alien  to  the  tra- 
dition of  the  Latins.  There  is  a  constant  strain- 
ing  to  express  the  inexpressible  vastness  of  vision 
and  passion,  to  put  into  speech  that  which  tran- 
scends it.  Thus,  almost  throughout  his  work,  there 
is  an  abundance,  sometimes  too  great  an  abun- 
dance, of  strong  words.  Things  are  to  him  ''enor- 
mous," "formidable,"  ''mad,"  "anguished,"  "bru- 
tal," ferocious,"  "bitter,"  "fevered."  The  titles 
of  some  of  his  books  are  instructive  in  this  respect : 
The  Black  Torches  (Les  Flambeaux  noirs).  The 
Hallucinated  Country  Sides  (Les  Campagnes  ha- 
lucinees)^  The  Tumultuous  Forces  (Les  Forces 
tumultueusesjj,  The  Multple  Splendor  (  La  Mul- 
tiple Splendeur) .     Everywhere  one  shares  his  own 

[30] 


impassioned  sense  of  the  inadequacy  of  language, 
of  the  weakness  of  imagery  which  he  strives  to 
overcome  by  the  use  of  sharp  contrasts  and  of  di- 
rect and  forceful  verbs : 

"Visages  d'encre  et  d'or  trouant  Tombre  et  la  brume."* 

In  other  words,  one  never  loses  sight  of  Ver- 
haeren's  racial  kinship.  He  is  a  Fleming,  a  de- 
scendant of  the  men  whom  Rembrandt  painted 
— a  full-bodied,  insatiable,  Gennanic  folk.  He 
was  profoundly  conscious  of  this  fact  and  gloried 
in  it: 

•  "Je  suis  le  fils  de  cette  race, 
Dont  les  cerveaux  plus  que  les  dents 
Sont  solides  et  sont  ardents 
Et  sont  voraces. 
Je  suis  le  fils  de  cette  race 
Tenace, 

Qui  veut,  apres  avoir  voulu 
Encore,  encore  et  encore  plus  I"  ^ 

One  feels  in  such  verses  almost  the  march  and  ac- 
cent of  Germanic  versification.     And  Verhaeren 

1  "Faces  of  ink  and  gold  boring  the  shade  and  fog." 
**  '^  "I    am    a    son    of    that    race    whose   brains,    more    than    their 
teeth,   are  sohd   and   are   ardent  and   voracious.     I   am   a  son  of 
that  tenacious  race  that  desires,  after  having  desired  the  more, 
more  yet  and  ever  more!" 

[31] 


raises  this  impulse  of  his  blood  and  race  into  a  phil- 
osophic vision  and  a  principle  of  conduct : 

V*Et  je  criais:     La  force  est  sainte. 

II  faut  que  rhomme  imprime  son  empreinte 

Violemment,  sur  ses  desseins  hardis; 

Elle  est  celle  qui  tient  les  clefs  des  paradis 
^Et  dont  le  large  poing  en  fait  tourner  les  portes."  ^ 

It  is  evident  that  the  style  and  rhythm  of  such  a 
poet  will  not  seek,  first  of  all,  after  beauty  but 
after  power,  that  in  its  failure  it  will  touch  yij3» 
lence,  in  its  success  subHniit^  And  that  is  lit- 
erally true  of  Verhaeren's  style. 

The  development  of  his  mind  and  art  is  im- 
portant not  only  for  the  student  of  his  verse.  Its 
nature  is  such  that  he  becomes,  by  virtue  of  it,  al- 
most symbolical  of  the  pain  and  hope  of  his  age. 
In  his  early  volumes  (Les  Flammandes^  Les 
Moines J^the  works  evidently  in  the  tradition  of 
Rubens:  he  sets  down  a  large,  strong  vision  of 
large,  strong  things.  \  Only  in  that  vision  there  is 
already,  despite  all  health  and  vigor,  a  deepening 

^  *'And  I  cried  out:  'Force  itself  is  sacred.  Man  must  vio- 
lently stamp  his  imprint  upon  his  bold  designs:  it  is  force  that 
holds  the  keys  of  all  paradises  and  whose  large  hand  makes 
their  gates  swing  open.'  " 

[3^] 


melancholy,  a  mystical  and  subjective  gloom. 
There  followed  a  period  of  acute  mental  and  phys- 
ical distress  ( 1887-1890),  bordering  at  times  upon 
the  pathological,  in  which  he  exalts  pain  itself 
with  an  almost  savage  note.  Gradually  he  re- 
covered. Love  helped  him  and  gentle  memories 
and,  at  times,  exquisite  visions  such  as  that  of  Saint 
George,  the  symbol  to  him  of  spiritual  valor: 

^    "J'ai  mis,  en  sa  pale  main  iiere, 
Les  fleurs  tristes  de  ma  douleur."  ^ 

But  the  liberating  experience,  since  he  could  find 
peace  in  no  form  of  personal  idealism,  religious  or 
philosophic,  came  to  him  about  1892  through  his 
identification  with  the  Socialist  movement.  It 
meant  far  more  to  him  than  a  humanitarian  hope, 
though  it  was  that,  too:  it  meant  now  the  possi- 
bility of  accepting  the  modern  world  in  its  entirety, 
identifying  himself  with  it,  casting  off  the  burden 
of  self.  In  that  inner  urgency  lay,  of  course,  his 
weakness.  But  the  process,  too,  clarified  his 
thinking  magnificently  and  freed  him  from  many 
of  the  common  and  futile  causes  of  moral  pain : 

^ "  'I    laid  into  his   proud,  pale  hand  the  sad   flowers  of  my 
pain/  '* 

[33] 


"Les  droits  et  les  devoirs?     Reves  divers  que  fait 
Devant  chaque  espoir  neuf,  la  jeunesse  du  monde!'*  ^ 

He  now  established  in  his  visions  and  his  verse 
that  contrast  between  the  past  and  future  of  civili- 
sation, symbolised  for  him  by  the  country  and  the 
city  and  the  latter's  encroachment  on  the  former : 

"L'esprit  de  campagnes  etait  I'esprit  de  Dieu  .  .  . 
L'usine  rouge  eclat  ou  seuls  brillaient  les  champs, 
La  fumee  a  flots  noirs  rase  les  toits  d'eglise."  ^ 

Again  and  again,  as  in  the  turbidly  yet  greatly 
imaginative  Les  Cordiers^  he  compares  the  long 
ago  with  the  burning  present : 

"Jadis — c'etait  la  vie  ardente,  evocatoire; 

La  Croix  blanche  de  ciel,  la  Croix  rouge  d'enfer 

Marchaient,  a  la  clarte  des  armures  de  fer, 

Chacune  a  travers  sang,  vers  son  ciel  de  victoire  .  •  . 

Voici — c'est  une  usine;  et  la  matiere  intense 
Et  rouge  y  roule  et  vibre,  en  des  caveaux, 
Ou  se  forgent  d'ahan  les  miracles  nouveaux 
Qui  absorbent  la  nuit,  le  temps  et  le  distance."  ^ 

1  "Rights  and  duties?  They  are  varied  dreams  that  the 
world's  youth  dreams  in  the  face  of  each  new  hope." 

2  "The  spirit  of  the  country-sides  was  the  spirit  of  God.  .  .  . 
The  factory  flares  where  once  the  lonely  fields  shone;  the  smoke 
in  black  waves  grazes  the  roofs  of  the  church." 

*    3  "Once  on  a  time — life  was  all  ardor  and  full  of  visions:    The 

[34] 


But  he  drew  his  profoundest  inspiration  from 
the  crowd  (La  Foule)  of  great  cities.  Here,  in 
this  universal,  laboring  heart  he  found  the  mean- 
ing of  life,  the  hope  for  the  future,  liberation  for 
his  own  soul.     In  these  cities  and  crowds,  he  cried : 

"Je  sens  grandir  et  s'exalter  en  moi 

Et  fermenter,  soudain,  mon  coeur  multiplie."  ^ 

He  saw  the  cities  with  all  the  accustomed  fevered 
^rdor  of  his  vision.  But  in  them  he  found  his  ul- 
timate hope : 

"Un  vaste  espoir,  venu  de  Tinconnu  deplace 
L'eqiulibre  ancien  dont  les  ames  sont  lasses."  ^ 

And  not  only  hope,  it  must  be  repeated,  but  free- 
dom. For  he  found  here  that  ''great  hour  in 
which  the  aspects  of  the  world  change,  wherein 
that  seems  strange  which  once  was  just  and  holy, 

white  Cross  of  heaven,  the  red  Cross  of  hell  marched,  in  the 
shining  of  iron  armor,  each  across  blood,  toward  its  victorioiw 
sky.  .  .  ."  "To-day — yonder  is  a  factory;  matter,  intense  and 
red,  rolls  and  vibrates  there  in  the  vaults  wherein  are  forged  with 
bitter  labor  those  new  miracles  that  swallow  night  and  time  and 
distance." 

1 1  feel  my  multiplied  heart  suddenly  grow  great  and  seethe 
and  exalt  itself  within  me. 

2  "A  vast  hope  arisen  from  the  unknown  displaces  the  ancient 
equilibrium  of  which  men's  souls  are  weary." 

[35] 


wherein  man  ascends  towards  the  summits  of  an- 
other faith,  where  madness  itself,  in  the  storms, 
forges  a  new  truth  I"  With  this  blind  communal 
birth  of  new  truth  and  new  law  he  strove  to  be 
at  one : 

"Engouffre-toi, 

Mon  coeur,  en  ces  foules  .  .  •"  ^ 

His  passion  and  his  vision  grew  in  apocalyptic 
fervor  on  this  note.  He  alone  among  the  greater 
modern  poets  dedicated  himself  utterly  to  the  ex- 
tremest  form  of  democratic  faith — faith  in  the 
prophetic  and  creative  power  of  the  mere  mass : 

"Mets  en  accord  ta  forces  avec  les  destinees 

Que  la  foule,  sans  le  savoir 

Promulgue,  en  cette  nuit  d'angoisse  illuminee. 

Ce  que  sera  demain,  le  droit  et  le  dejair, 

Seule,  elle  en  a  I'instinct  profond, 

Et  Tunivers  total  s'attelle  et  collabore 

Avec  ses  milliers  de  causes  qu'on  ignore 

A  chaque  effort  vers  le  futur,  qu'elle  elabore, 

Rouge  et  tragique,  a  I'horizon."  ^ 

1  "Engulf  thyself,  my  heart,  in  these  crowds  .  .  ." 

2  "Place  thy  strength  in  harmony  with  those  destinies  which, 
without  knowing  it,  the  crowd  promulgates  in  this  night  lit  by 
agonies.  Of  what  the  morrow  _sy^^^  ih^"=T  '  ^"'*^^  "^  ''1!^''  "*'^ 
duty  the  crowd  '9I16neTias  the  deep  instinct.    And  the  whole  uni* 

[36] 


That  is  very  fervent  and  very  noble  writing,  i  Yet 
one  feels,  I  think,  throughout  such  passages,  a  sense 
not  of  the  highest  strength — nothing  of  quiet 
power.  He  fled  from  his  too  troubled  and  in- 
sistent self  to  this  extreme  faith  because  he  could 
not  clarify  that  self  or  calm  it;  because  he  failed 
to  be,  in  the  deeper  and  serener  sense,  the  master 
of  his  soul.  A  man  and  a  poet  almost  but  nexCL 
wholly  great,  h  .  .  ^ 

To  pass  from  Verhaeren  to  Regnier  is  to  recall, 
involuntarily,  Taine's  old  theory  of  the  effect  of 
climate  on  literature.  For  can  any  one  be,  more 
than  Verhaeren,  the  creature  of  a  fog-bound  coast, 
a  storm-beaten  plain,  a  group  of  rain-swept  cities? 
And  then  that  golden- winged  Muse  (La  Muse  aux 
ailes  d'or)  of  Henri  de  Regnier — does  she  not 
move  in  luminous  gardens  under  a  temperate  but 
radiant  sky,  does  she  not  hear  the  murmur  of  clear 
waters  on  the  wooded  slopes,  does  she  not  sing  her 
austere  dream  of  beauty  in  a  calm  and  starry  even- 
fall  .  .  .   ?     No  one  could  be  more  Latin  than 

verse  puts  itself  in  harness  and  with  its  thousand  causes  of 
which  we  know  nothing  labors  at  each  eflFort  toward  the  future 
which  the  mass  draws  broadly,  red  and  tragic,  upon  the  horizon," 

[37] 


Regnier.  Modern  as  he  is,  exquisite  practitioner 
of  free  verse,  n\j[Stical  lover  of  beauty,  he  has  the 
"divine  elegance"  of  Vergilj'^Uhe  lovely  suavitas^ 
the  discreet  but  piercing  melancholy\^  He  attains 
these  qualities,  of  course,  at  the  price  of  large  and 
definite  exclusions.  The  harsh  cries,  the  tragic 
questions  of  the  modern  world,  never  break  in  upon 
the  walled  garden  of  his  imaginings.  He  lives,  as 
M.  Jean  de  Gourmont  has  said,  "in  royal  land- 
scapes, palaces  of  gold  and  marble  which  are  noth- 
ing in  reality  but  the  setting  in  which  the  poet  has 
chosen  to  place  his  dream."  I  would  not  have 
him  otherwise.  The  world  sets  our  hearts  and 
brains  on  fire.  Here,  in  the  poetry  of  Regnier,  is 
a  place  of  ease  and  rest  and  noble  solitude  like  that 
"great,  good  place"  in  Henry  James'  story,  here 
beauty,  though  with  so  new  a  grace,  goes  through 
her  eternal  gesture  and  lays  her  hand  upon  the 
fever  of  our  eyes.  I  would  have  him  always  in 
that  attitude  of  his  Discours  en  Face  de  la 
Nuit: 


I* Je  parlerai,  debout  et  du  fond  de  mon  songe.  .  .  .  "  ^ 

erect 

[38] 


1  "I   shall   speak   standing  erect   and   from   the   depth   of   my 
dream." 


And  I  would  have  his  liquid  voice  die  on  the  ear 

"Avec  I'aube  qui  rit  aux  larmes  des  fontaines, 
Avec  le  soir  qui  pleure  aux  rires  des  ruisseaux."  ^ 

i  His  style  is  unique,  both  in  its  diction  and  its 
imagery,  for  an  extraordinary  blending  of  mod- 
ern sensitiveness  with  classic  clearness  and  frugal- 
ity. /  Constantly,  after  his  earliest  symbolist 
poems,  he  employs  the  traditional  Hellenic  myths 
and  legends  to  body  forth  his  vision;  he  does  so 
even  in  the  freest  of  modern  verse  and  so  adds  to 
those  myths  and  legends  a  new  freshness  and  a 
more  troubling  grace.  The  Latin  in  him  is  uncon- 
querable, the  immemorial  tradition  absorbed  him, 
until  quite  recently,  more  and  more.  As  early  as 
1896  he  wrote  lines  which  would  startle  no  one  if 
found  on  some  page  of  the  Greek  Anthology  or  of 
Tibullus.  There  is  the  same  frugal  restraint  ia^ 
sadness  and  in  beauty. 

"Et  mes  yeux  qui  t'ont  vu  sont  las  d'avoir  pleure 

Uinexorable  absence  ou  tu  t'es  retire 

Loin  de  mes  bras  pieux  et  de  ma  bouche  triste  .  .  .*'  ^ 

*  "With  dawn  that  laughs  with  the  tears  of  the  fountains,  with 
evening  that  weeps  to  the  laughter  of  the  rivulets." 

2  "And  my  eyes  which  have  seen  thee  are  weary  of  having 

[39] 


One  recalls,  I  think,  those  other  verses — as  tender 
and  as  full  of  longing — of  the  Roman  elegist : 

^  "Te  spectem  suprema  mihi  cum  venerit  hora, 
Te  teneam  moriens  deficiente  manu."  ^ 

His  growing  preoccupation  with  beauty  in  its 
antique  forms  may  be  studied  in  the  admirable  ti- 
tles of  his  later  volumes:  Games  Rustic  and  Di- 
vine (Les  Jeux  rustiques  et  divins)^  The  Medals 
of  Clay  (Les  Medailles  d'Argile)^  The  Winged 
Sandal  (La  Sand  ale  ailee.)  It  would  be  doing 
him  a  grave  wrong,  however,  to  imagine  that  he 
takes  up  again  any  Neo-classic  tradition ;  his  inspi- 
ration and  its  sources  are  as  alien  as  possible  to 
either  the  method  of  the  Renaissance  or  of  the  Sev- 
enteenth Century.  He  has  chosen  the  imagery  of 
the  ancients  because  he  has  seen  and  felt  it  anew, 
for  himself,  and  has  deliberately  used  it  in  that 
vibrant,  ultra-modem  verse  of  his : 


"Un  jour,  encor, 

Entre  les  feuilles  d'ocre  et  d'or 

wept  over  the  inexorable  absence  to  which  thou  hast  withdrawn, 
far  from  my  pious  arms  and  my  sad  mouth." 

1  "May  I  see  thee  when  my  supreme  hour  shall  have  come,  may 
I,  dying,  hold  thee  with  my  failing  hand.'* 

[40] 


Du  bois,  je  vis,  avec  ses  jambes  de  poil  jaune, 
Danser  un  faune."  ^ 

He  finds  the  timelessness  of  beauty  best  inter- 
preted thus.  'Tor  Poetry,"  he  writes,  ''has  nei- 
ther yesterday  nor  to-morrow,  nor  to-day.  It  is 
the  sarne  everywhere.  What  it  desires  is  to  see 
itself  beautiful  and  is  indifferent,  if  only  its  beauty 
be  reflected,  whether  the  glass  is  the  natural  spring 
of  the  forest  or  some  mirror  in  which  a  subtle  ar- 
tifice shows  unto  it  its  divine  countenance  in  the 
crystal  limpidness  of  a  fictive  and  imaginary  wa- 
ter." One  may  assent  to  that  theory  or  one  may 
not.  It  is  by  the  light  of  such  thought,  at  all 
events,  that  M.  de  Regnier  has  wjitten  the  most 
beautiiuj^  French  yg][^  age. 

He  does  not,  of  course,  deny  his  modernity,  his 
origin  in  time.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Verlaine  and 
heard  Mallarme  in  his  youth  and  wrote : 

"II  neige  dans  mon  coeur  des  souffrances  cachees.  .  .  ."  ^ 

with  its  obvious  reminiscence  of  Verlaine's  fa- 
mous: 

^  "Again,  one  day,  amid  the  forest's  leaves  of  ochre  and  of 
gold  I  saw  a  faun  dance  with  his  yellow  haired  legs." 
2  "It  snows  in  my  heart  with  hidden  sufferings  .  .  ." 

[41] 


"II  pleure  dans  mon  coeur 
Comme  il  pleut  sur  la  ville.  •  .  ."  ^ 

He  wrote : 

"O  mon  ame,  le  soir  est  triste  sur  hier.  ..."  * 

And  he  proclaimed  in  those  years : 

"La  Terre  douloureuse  a  bu  le  sang  des  Reves.  .  .  ."  ^ 

And  his  versification  is  as  wavering  and  as  untra- 
ditional  in  his  last  volume  as  in  his  first.  The 
truth  is  that^he  took  refuge  in  the  antique  vision 
of  beauty  from  the  excessive  sensitiveness  of  his 
own  temper,  from  the  over-delicacy  of  his  own 
pride.  Life  had  too  great  a  power  to  wound  him 
and  so  he  turned,  in  poetry,  to  those  objects  of  con- 
templation and  those  images  that  have  no  pang  but 
the  pang  of  beauty : 

**Car  la  forme,  Todeur  et  la  beaute  des  choses 
Sont  le  seul  souvenir  dont  on  ne  souffre  pas."  * 

^  "It  weeps  in  my  heart  as  it  rains  on  the  town  .  .  ." 

2  "O  my  soul,  the  evening  is  sad  over  yesterday  .  .  ." 

3  "The  anguished  earth  has  drunk  the  blood  of  dreams/* 

*  "For  the  form,  the  fragrance  and  the  beauty  of  things  are  the 
only  memory  from  which  one  does  not  suffer." 

[42] 


In  his  last  volume  there  is  directer  and  more  naked 
speech  as  in  the  powerfuXgassion  of  Le  Reproche^ 
the  grave  and  elevated  frankness  of  UAccueil^ 
the  remarkable  avowal  of  La  Foret.  And  he  may 
continue  upon  this  path.  The  marvellous  beauty 
of  the  work  of  his  middle  years,  however,  will  re- 
main in  its  union  of  classic  grace  and  modern  sub- 
tlety. 

That  union  was  founded  upon  a  personal  inter- 
pretation of  the  post-Kantian  idealism  which  came 
to  France  in  the  early  days  of  the  Symbolist  move- 
ment. *'I  have  feigned,"  says  M.  de  Regnier, 
"that  gods  have  spoken  with  me.  ..."  ''Lis- 
ten: there  is  someone  behind  the  echo,  erect  amid 
the  universal  life  who  bears  the  double  arch  and 
the  double  torch  and  who  is  divinely  identical  with 
us."  That  spirit  of  universal  beauty  who  is  at 
one  with  the  All  and  at  one  with  us  arises  out  of 
that  divine  union  in  an  hundred  shadows  of  him- 
self and  these  shadows  of  the  "invisible  Face"  the 
poet  has  sought  to  grave  upon  medals  "soft  and 
silvery  as  the  pale  dawn,  of  gold  as  ardent  as  the 
sun,  of  brass  as  sombre  as  the  night — of  every 

[43] 


metal  that  sounds  clear  as  joy  or  deep  as  glory  or 
love  or  death."  And  he  has  made  the  loveliest 
"of  lovely  clay,  fragile  and  dry."  And  men  have 
come  to  him  and  smiled  and  counted  the  medals 
and  said:  ''He  is  skilful/'  and  have  passed  on 
smiling : 

"Aucun  de  vous  n'a  done  vu 

Que  mes  mains  tremblaient  de  tendresse, 

Que  tout  le  grand  songe  terrestre 

Vivait  en  moi  pour  vivre  en  eux 

Que  je  gravais  aux  metaux  pieux 

Mes  Dieux, 

Et  qu'ils  etaient  le  visage  vivant 

De  ce  que  nous  avons  senti  des  roses, 

De  Teau,  du  vent, 

De  la  foret  et  de  la  mer, 

De  toutes  choses 

En  notre  chair 

Et  qu'ils  sont  nous  divinement."  ^ 

That  passage  completes  the  statement  of  the  phil- 
osophical  background   of   Regnier's   poetry.     It 

1  "Did  not  but  one  of  you  then  see  that  my  hands  trembled 
with  tenderness,  that  all  the  great  terrestrial  dream  lived  in  me 
to  live  again  in  them  whom  I  engraved  on  pious  metals — those 
gods  of  mine, — and  that  they  were  the  living  countenance  of  all 
that  we  have  felt  of  roses,  of  water  and  the  wind,  of  the  forest 
and  the  sea,  of  all  things  in  our  flesh,  and  that,  in  some  divine 
way,  they  are  ourselves." 

[44] 


may  also  serve  to  illustrate  the  flexibility,  the  ex- 
pressiveness and  range  of  his  free  verse  music,  even 
though  it  has  not  the  ampler  cadences  of  Le  Vase. 
But  indeed,  M.  de  Regnier's  versification  is  always 
— at  least  to  a  foreigner's  ear — mere  perfection. 
His  music  is  usually  grave  and  slovi^  and  deep, 
rarely  very  energetic,  but  of  a  sweetness  that  never 
cloys.  Ht  has  used  rime  and  assonance,  he  has 
denied  himself  no  measure  of  freedom  and  variety, 
but  he  has  also  taken  the  alexandrine  and  drawn 
from  it  a  note  of  profound  spiritual  grace  and  a 
more  inner  music. 

It  is  difficult  to  choose  among  the  other  poets 
who  proceeded  from  Symbolism.  They  are  many 
and  there  is  hardly  one  of  them  who  has  not  writ- 
ten memorably  at  times.  But  this  is  not  a  history 
of  the  modern  poetry  of  France  and  it  will  suffice 
to  speak  briefly  of  Jean  Moreas,  of  MM.  Francis 
Viele-Griffin  and  Stuart  Merrill,  of  the  late  4K 
bert  Samain  and  Remy  de  Gourmont  and,  still 
more  briefly,  of  those  younger  men  who  carry  the 
symbolist  inspiration  and  method  into  the  imme- 
diate present. 

[45] 


Jean  Moreas  (1856-1910)  a  notably  gifted 
and  flexible  Greek  threw  himself  early  and  ar- 
dently into  the  Symbolist  movement.  But,  by 
1891,  in  his  Le  Pelerin  Passione^  he  attempted 
to  create  a  diversion,  to  found  a  new  school,  the 
briefly  famous  Ecole  rotnane.  •  He  was  concerned 
largely  with  the  question  of  poetic  diction  and, 
through  it,  of  poetic  vision.  <  He  desired,  to  bring 
about  a  "communion  of  the  French  Middle  Ages 
and  Renaissance  with  the  principle  of  the  modern 
soul,"  by  using  a  selection  from  the  archaic  words 
of  the  Pleiade  and  even  of  the  Roman  de  la  Rose. 
Hence  M.  Anatole  France  promptly  called  him  the 
Ronsard  of  Symbolism.  And  the  lyrics  of  the 
Pelerin  passione  have,  no  doubt,  a  certain  old- 
world  sweetness  wherever  the  obvious  archaisms 
do  not  give  them  a  somewhat  obscure  and  artificial 
grace.  His  earlier  symbolist  verse,  in  which  he 
took  some  very  quaint  and  charming  liberties  of 
versification  and  poetic  manner — 

("Parmi  les  marroniers,  parmi  les 
Lilas  blancs,  les  lilas  violets.  .  .  .  ")  ^ 

^  "Among  the  chestnut  trees,  among  the  white  lilacs,  the  violet 
lilacs  .  .  ." 

.       [46] 


— are  of  the  stuff  of  dreams  and  have  a  dreamy  ca- 
dence : 

"Voix  qui  revenez,  bercez-nous,  berceuses  voix.  .  .  ."  ^ 

Finally  he  left  behind  him  both  Symbolism  and 
his  own  Ecole  romane.  'These  things  concern 
me  no  longer,"  he  confessed  in  his  middle  age  and, 
withdrawing  into  solitude,  he  wrote  his  last  work: 
Les  Stances  (1901-1905).  In  these  poems  he 
returns  to  the  traditional  verse,  to  the  traditional 
stanzaic  forms.  They  have  an  extraordinary  pu- 
rity of  poetic  outline,  a  notable  dignity  of  speech 
and  imagination,  a  just  and  proud  perfection.  It 
was  the  Hellenic  soul  in  him,  one  must  suppose, 
that  made  his  last  work  so  memorable  an  example 
of  the  classical  spirit  in  modem  poetry.  His 
changes  of  mood  and  manner  and  theory  were  not 
without  their  influence  upon  the  younger  poets  and 
no  less  a  man  that  M.  Paul  Fort  has  written : 

"Ce  que  je  dois  a  Moreas  ne  peut  etre  dit  en  paroles."  ^ 

The  American,   M.   Francis  Viele-GrifRn    (b. 
1864)  was  one  of  the  very  active  founders  of  the 

1  "O  voices  that  return,  cradle  us,  cradling  voices  .  .  ." 

2  "What  I  owe  to  Moreas  cannot  be  expressed  in  words." 

[47] 


Symbolist  school  and  has  remained  true  to  it  ever 
since.  A  poet  of  rare  lyrical  gift,  he  has  always 
been  concerned  with  his  "interior  vision"  andghas 
continued  to  hold  that  "conviction,  common  to 
Shelley,  Wagner  and  Mallarme,  that  reality  is  a 
creation  of  the  soul  and  art  a  superimposed  crea- 
tion." fWith  him,  as  with  so  many  of  the  poets 
of  modern  France — Jewish,  Greek,  Flemish,  An- 
glo-Saxon, Alemanic  Swiss — one  is  tempted, 
wrongly  perhaps,  to  attribute  certain  qualities  of 
thought  and  style  to  racial  origin.  It  is  a  fact,  at 
all  events,  that  M.  Viele-GriflBn  is  often  haunt- 
ingly  lyrical  in  a  sense  that  is  not  characteristic- 
ally Latin  and  that  in  his  mingling  of  verses  of 
seven  and  eight  syllables  one  seems  to  detect  the 
introduction  of  an  English  cadence: 

"N'est-il  une  chose  au  Monde, 

Chere,  a  la  face  du  ciel 

— Un  rire,  un  reve,  une  ronde, 

Un  rayon  d'aurore  ou  de  miel.  .  .  .  "  ^ 

He  is  a  poet  who  rarely  touches  the  imagination 
without   also   touching  the  heart,   whose   music 

^  "Is  there  a  thing  in  the  world,  dear,  in  the  face  of  the  sky — 
a  laugh,  a  dream,  a  song,  a  beam  of  the  dawn  or  of  honey." 

[48] 


ranges  from  a  lyrical  lift  to  the  fullness  and  grave- 
ness  of  the  elegy. 

The  other  American  who  has  become  a  modern 
French  poet  is  M.  Stuart  Merrill  (b.  1868).  His 
general  character  as  a  man  and  an  artist  is  at  once 
evident  from  a  correct  interpretation  of  his  own 
words :  * 'Modern  society  is  a  badly  written  poem 
which  one  must  be  active  in  correcting.  A  poet, 
in  the  etymological  sense,  remains  a  poet  every- 
where and  it  is  his  duty  to  bring  back  some  love- 
liness upon  the  earth."  Accordingly,  M.  Merrill, 
a  revolutionary  Socialist,  has  given  unstintingly 
both  of  himself  and  of  his  fortune  to  his  chosen 
cause.  In  art,  on  the  other  hand,  he  has  been  pre- 
occupied^, wijdb^,  beauty .  alone.  IJj^^£oems_arj£ 
woven  upon  the  loom  of  dreamsjithey  have  a^ 
visionary  magnificence,  a  glii^t  as  of  shadows  upon 
gold.  H  Once  at  least  in  Les  Foings  a  la  Forte  he 
has  come  near  sublimity.  His  music  has  often  a 
slow  and  lingering  quality  and  he  has  used,  with 
notable  success,  lines — so  rare  in  French — that  are 
longer  than  the  alexandrine : 

"L* Amour  entrera  tou jours  comme  un  ami  dans  notre 
maison, 

[49] 


T'ai-je  repondu,  ecoutant  le  bruit  des  feuiUes  qui  tom- 
bent."  1 

In  turning  to  Albert  Samain  (1858-1900)  we 
come  once  more  upon  the  unmistakably  Latin  tem- 
perament. The  first  of  his  two  celebrated  vol- 
umes Au  Jar  din  de  U  Infante  (1893)  is  purely 
symbolist  in  inspiration  and  quality;  in  the 
second  Aux  ¥  lanes  du  Vase  (1898)  he  turns  again 
to  the  beauty  of  the  visible  world,«of  the  immor- 
tal gesture  held  fast  as  in  the  plastic  arts  which  is, 
after  all,  perhaps  the  most  characteristic  method 
of  French  poetry .<  His  verse  here  is  still  free  and 
flowing  and  trembling;  the  pictures  are  sculptured 
or  painted,  and  poetry  adds  nothing  to  this  art 
except  the  element  of  motion  before  the  final  and 
memorable  gesture  is  achieved.  All  his  best 
poems  follow  this  method  and  so  he  attains  the 
white,  sculptural  beauty  of  Xanthis^  the  ruddy, 
flame-like  glow  of  Fanny  re  aux  Talons  d'Or 
(xxxvi). 

The  chief  quality  of  the  late  M.  Remy  de  Gour- 
mont's   (1858-1915)   character  was  an  extreme 

1  "Love  will  enter  always  like  a  friend  into  our  house,  I  an- 
swered thee  while  listening  to  the  noise  of  leaves  that  fall." 

[50] 


subtlety — subtlety  of  mind  and  subtlety  of  the 
senses.  The  first  made  him  a  critic  of  the  highest 
order  even  in  a  country  of  great  critics.  He  car- 
ried far  beyond  Jules  Lemaitre  what  is  rather  fool- 
ishly known  as  the  impressionist  method  in  criti- 
cism: the  plain  and  sensible  belief,  namely,  that 
a  work  of  art  is  precious  not  through  the  tribal  or 
social  elements  in  it,  but  through  the  personal, 
thattart  knows  no  ought-ness  of  convention  or 
precedent  and  that  the  test  of  beauty,  different  in 
that  respect  from  truth,  is  a  pragmatic  one.^.  .  . 
His  poetry,  of  which  he  did  not  write  a  great  deal, 
addresses  itself  to  the  nerves,  to  the  finej  seiises. 
It  is  keen  and  strange  and  pale  and,  at  its  best,  of 
a  ver^individual  music  though  always  adhering 
to  the  prosody  of  the  Symbolists. 

The  younger  members  of  the  school,  the  late 
Charles  Guerin  (1873-1907),  M.  Camille  Mau- 
clair  (who  is  also  a  critic  of  distinction),  M. 
Henry  Bataille  (the  well-known  playwright),  M. 
Henri  Barbusse  (who  recently  achieved  interna- 
tional fame  with  Le  Feu)^  M.  Henri  Spiess  and 
M.  Fernand  Gregh,  have  all  continued  the  now 
familiar  methods  of  modern  French  poetry.     Each 

[51] 


has  contributed  his  personal  vision  and  his  per- 
sonal note.  But  he  has  contributed  these  to  a 
kind  of  poetry  now  firmly  established  and  well 
recognisable:  poetry  that  lives  in  the  dawn  and 
dusk  of  the  mind,  that  sees  its  visions  in  the  state 
of  re  very  and  projects  its  own  shadows  upon  the 
face  of  the  world — whose  voice  is  a  wavering 
music,  the  notes  of  a  flute  upon  the  breeze.  .  .  . 


C52] 


IV 

THE  LATER  FORCES  IN  FRENCH  POETRY 

"II  dit  je  ne  sais  quoi  de  triste,  bon  et  pur/' 

Francis  Jammes 

"La  terre  e<t  le  soleil  en  moi  sont  en  cadence, 
et  toute  la  nature  est  entree  dans  mon  coeur." 

Paul  Fort 

There  has  been  no  reaction  against  Symbolism  in 
France.  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  the  very  young- 
est group,  with  some  exaggerations  in  prosodic 
matters,  has  not  merely  returned  to  the  essential 
taste  and  method  of  the  early  eighteen  hundred 
and  nineties.  In  the  meantime,  however,  there 
have  appeared  two  powerful  talents  who,  a  rare 
thing  in  France,  stand  aside  and  alone,  members 
of  no  group,  no  school,  no  cenacle:  MM.  Francis 
Jammes  (b.  1868)  and  Paul  Fort  (b.  1872). 

Charles  Guerin,  in  a  set  of  very  pure  and  very 
touching  verses  addressed  to  M.  Jammes  calls  that 

[53] 


poet  a  ''son  of  Vergil.''  The  saying  has  been  re- 
peated because  M.  Jammes,  unlike  the  average 
French  man  of  letters,  lives  in  the  country  (at 
Orthez  in  the  Hautes-Pyrenees)  and  writes  about 
country  matters  which  he  understands  admirably. 
Thus  he  recalls,  in  a  superficial  way,  the  poet  of 
the  Ge orgies.  But  one  quotation,  and  a  hack- 
neyed one,  from  those  magnificent  poems  and  one 
brief  confession  from  M.  Jammes  will  show  the 
absurdity  of  the  comparison  and  also  define  the 
French  poet's  character.  Everyone  knows  the 
Vergilian  lines : 

"Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas.  .  .  ."  ^ 

M.  Jammes  prefaced  his  first  collection  of  poems 
with  these  words :  ''My  God,  you  have  called  me 
among  men.  Here  I  am.  I  suffer  and  I  love.  I 
have  spoken  with  the  voice  which  you  have  given 
me.  I  have  written  with  the  words  which  you 
taught  my  father  and  my  mother  who  transmitted 
them  to  me.  I  pass  along  the  road  like  a  burdened 
ass  at  whom  children  laugh  and  who  droops  his 

1  "Happy  he  who  has  been  able  to  understand  the  causes  of 
things." 

[54] 


head.  I  shall  go  when  you  would  have  me, 
whither  you  would  have  me  go.  .  .  .  The  angelus 
rings."  There  is  nothing  here  of  the  sad  intel- 
lectual valor  of  the  Augustans.  It  is  the  note  of 
Saint  Francis,  the  humble  brother  of  the  birds 
and  beasts.  ...  In  a  word,  M.  Jammes  is  a 
Catholic.  So  wholly  a  Catholic  that  one  need 
not  spea£  of  intellectual  submission  in  his  case. 
He  was  born  with  the  light  of  faith  as  his  only 
guide  and  sees  life  with  the  wide-eyed  reverential 
wonder  of  a  little  child  or  a  great  saint.  He  has 
the  child's  and  the  saint's  simple-hearted  fa- 
miliarity with  divine  things : 

"Ce  n'est  pas  vous,  mon  Dieu, 
qui,  sur  les  joues  en  roses,  posez  la  mort  bleue."  ^ 

and  the  tender  and  vivid  sense  of  the  human  ele- 
ments in  his  divinities : 

"Rappelez-vous,  mon  Dieu,  devant  Tenf ant  qui  meurt, 
que  vous  vivez  toujours  aupres  de  votre  Mere."  ^ 

So,  too,  as  an  artist,  he  is  like  the  nameless  sculp- 

1  "It  is  not  you,  my  God,  who  on  the  rosy  cheeks  will  lay  the 
blue  of  death." 

2  "Recall,  my  God,  before  the  dying  child,  that  you  live  always 
near  your  own  mother." 

[55] 


tors  who  adorned  the  Mediseval  cathedrals,  an 
humble  craftsman  in  the  light  of  God's  glory,  de- 
siring nothing  for  himself: 

"Et,  comme  un  adroit  ouvrier 
tient  sa  truelle  alourdie  de  mortier, 
je  veux,  d'un  coup,  a  chaque  fois  porter 
du  bon  ouvrage  au  mur  de  ma  chaumiere."  ^ 

He  is  aware,  of  course,  of  the  life  of  his  own  age. 
He  has  read,  as  he  says,  "novels  and  verses  made 
in  Paris  by  men  of  talent."  But  these  men  and 
their  works  seem  very  forlorn  and  sad  to  him.  He 
would  have  them  come  to  his  own  country-side; 
for  it  is  in  the  stillness  of  the  fields  and  farms  that 
the  peace  of  God  is  to  be  found : 

"Alors  lis  souriront  en  fumant  dans  leur  pipe, 
et,  s'ils  souffrent  encore,  car  les  hommes  sont  tristes, 
lis  gueriront  beaucoup  en  ecoutant  les  cris 
des  eperviers  pointus  sur  quelque  mctairie."  ^ 

His  own  happiness  is  untroubled,  his  own  submis- 
sion  to  the  divine  will  complete.     Like  Saint 

i"And  as  a  skilful  workman  holds  his  trowel,  heavy  with 
mortar,  I  would,  at  once,  each  time  add  some  goodly  work  to 
the  wall  of  my  cottage." 

2  "Then  they  will  smile  while  smoking  their  pipes,  and,  if 
they  suffer  still,  for  men  are  sad,  they  will  be  greatly  cured  by 
hearing  the  cries  of  the  slim  sparrow-hawks  over  the  farmlands." 

[56] 


Francis  he  has  grasped  the  uttermost  meaning  of 
the  Christian  virtue  of  humility  and  prays  to  pass 
into  Paradise  with  the  asses : 

".  .  .  et  faites  que,  penche  dans  ce  sejour  des  ames 
sur  vos  divines  eaux,  je  sois  pareil  aux  ans 
qui  mireront  leur  humble  et  douce  pauvrete 
a  la  limpidite  de  I'amour  eternel."  ^ 

These  quotations,  fragmentary  and  brief  as  they 
are,  will  already  have  made  clear  some  of  the 
qualities  of  this  extraordinary  poet.  The  saint-^ 
like  simplicity  of  his  vision  has  really,  on  the 
purely  descriptive  side,  made  him  a  naturalist. 
For  he  is  no  burning  mystic,  no  St.  John  of  the 
Cross  or  Richard  Crashaw,  but  a  humble  child  of 
the  Church  who  sees  the  immediate  things  of  this 
world  very  soberly  and  clearly  as  they  appear  in 
their  objective  nature: 

"II  y  a  aussi  le  chien  malade 
regardant  tristement,  couche  dans  les  salades 
venir  la  grande  mort  qu'il  ne  comprendra  pas."  ^ 

1  "Leaning  over  your  divine  waters  in  that  sojourning  place  of 
souls,  cause  me  to  be  like  to  the  asses  who  will  mirror  their 
humble  and  gentle  poverty  in  the  limpidity  of  the  eternal  love." 

2  "There  is  also  the  sick  dog  sadly  watching,  where  he  lies 
amid  the  lettuce,  great  death  approach  which  he  will  not  under- 
stand/' 

[57] 


But  he  is  always  conscious  of  the  relations  which 
''  these  things,  according  to  his  faith,  sustain  to  the 
divine.     And  so,  when  his  own  dog  dies,  he  ex- 
claims : 

"Ah !  f aites,  mon  Dieu,  si  vous  me  donnez  la  grace 
de  Vous  voir  face  a  Face  aux  jours  d'fiternite, 
faites  qu'un  pauvre  chien  contemple  face  a  face 
celui  qui  fut  son  dieu  parmi  rhumanite."  ^ 

As  becomes  his  spiritual  character, \M.  Jammes 
has  discarded  all  the  vain  pomp  and  splendor  of 
verse,  even  the  subtler  and  quieter  graces  ofjhe 
Symbolists.  His  tone  is  conversational,  almost 
casual  ;!jhis  sentences  have  the  structure  of  prose. 
He  uses  rime  or  assonance  or  suddenly  fails  to 
rime  at  all.  He  seems  merely  bent  on  telling  the 
simple  and  beautiful  things  in  his  heart  as  quietly 
as  possible.  What  constitutes  his  eminence,  his 
very  high  eminence,  as  an  artist  is  the  fact  that  his 
prosaic  simplicity  of  manner,  his  naive  matter-of- 
factness,  his  apparently  (but  only  apparently) 
slovenly  technique  are  so  used  as  to  make  for  a 

1  "Ah,  my  God,  if  you  grant  me  the  grace  of  seeing  you  face  to 
face  in  the  days  of  Eternity,  then  let  a  poor  dog  contemplate 
face  to  face  him  who  was  his  god  among  men." 

[58] 


new  style  in  French  poetry — a  naturalistic  style 
that  rises  constantly  to  a  high  and  noble  elevation 
of  speech,  and  rises  to  that  elevation,  as  Words- 
worth sought  to  do,  by  using  the  simplest  words  in 
the  simplest  order.  Briefly,*  he  does  not  adorn 
things  until  they  become  poetical;  he  sees  them 
poetically.  \  His  imagination  and  his  heart  trans- 
form them,  not  his  diction  or  his  figures  of  speech. 
Is  that  not  the  highest  aim  of  poetry?  And  yet 
it  were  thrusting  aside  some  very  elementary  and 
obvious  considerations  to  call  M.  Jammes  a  great 
poet.  A  great  artist  he  is — but  not  a  great  poet. 
For,  except  on  the  purely  pictorial  side,  his  sub- 
ject matter,  the  intellectual  content  of  his  work 
is,  necessarily,  without  significance  or  permanent 
validity.  It  has  subjective  truth  only.  So,  it 
may  be  said,  has  the  substance  of  most  modern 
verse.  True!  But  a  subjectivity  that  finds  har- 
monious echoes  in  a  thousand  souls  achieves,  after 
all,  the  only  kind  of  objectivity,  of  reality  that 
we  know.  That  kind  of  reality  and  therefore  sig- 
nificance M.  Jammes,  as  a  Catholic  in  the  twenti- 
eth century,  has  largely  denied  himself.  To  his 
fellow-villagers  at  Orthez,  who  share  his  faith,  he 

[59] 


will  seem  merely  curious  as  a  writer:  to  the  in- 
tellectual world  of  the  present  and  the  future  he 
will  seem  a  little  curious — however  admirably 
and  highly  gifted — as  a  man. 

The  fame  of  M.  Paul  Fort  has  attached,  so 
far,  mainly  to  the  new  kind  of  writing  which  he 
is  said  to  have  invented.  He  himself  has  pro- 
tested against  this,  and  it  is  but  natural  that  he 
should.  It  is  equally  natural  for  the  public  to 
fix  its  attention  upon  the  startling  innovations  of 
which  he  is  the  author.  But  I  must  hasten  to  add 
that  the  revolutionary  character  of  these  innova- 
tions has  been  greatly  exaggerated.  In  matters 
strictly  prosodic  M.  Fort  employs,  as  a  rule,  a 
principle  which  is  conservative  enough  in  its  na- 
ture. And  yet  his  style  of  writing  is  new,  and  not 
only  new  but  charmingly  successful  and  he  him- 
self one  of  the  most  remarkable  and  delightful 
poets  of  our  time. 

He  writes  and  prints  his  verse  as  prose.  In- 
stead of  stanzas,  the  eye  is  given  paragraphs,  now 
long,  now  short.  But  I  must  emphasise  the  fact 
that  the  length  and  rhythmic  character  of  the 

[60] 


paragraphs  in  any  given  poem  is,  nearly  always, 
the  same.  Thus  the  one  essential  characteristic 
of  verse  (in  the  narrower  sense),  the  recurrence  of 
rhythm-groups  that  are  felt  to  be  equal  in  time,  is 
preserved.  If  now  one  begins  to  analyse  these 
paragraphs  it  will  be  found  that,  with  definite  but 
not  very  numerous  exceptions,  they  resolve  them- 
selves into  lesser  equal  rhythm-groups  or — lines. 
And  these  lines  are,  granting  many  exceptions 
again,  verses  of  eight,  ten  or  twelve  syllables. 
Here  is  an  example  of  two  octosyllabic  verses 
printed  as  prose : 

"Pourquoi  renouer  Tamourette?     C'est-y  bien  la  peine 
d'aimerri 

And  here  of  two  deccasyllabic  verses : 

"Ah!  que  de  joie,  la  flute  et  la  musette  troublent  nos 
coeurs  de  leurs  accords  charmants.  .  .  ."  ^ 

It  is  in  the  use  of  the  twelve-syllabled  verse,  of 
the  alexandrine,  that  M.  Fort  is  most  original. 
The  rhythmic  unit  that  he  uses  is  in  reality  the 

1  "Why  knot  again  our  broken   love  ?     Is  the  sorrow  of  love 
worth  while?" 

2  "Ah,   what  delight,   the   flute   and   the   bagpipe   trouble   our 
hearts  with  their  charming  harmonies  .  .  .'* 

[61] 


hemistich  or  stave  of  six  syllables  without,  how- 
ever, letting  the  full  movement  of  the  alexandrine 
ever  escape  the  ear  entirely.  Thus  he  can  con- 
stantly use  internal  rime  or  assonance  and  also  un- 
rimed  end  syllables.  To  illustrate  this  manner 
of  his  fully  I  shall  quote  a  rather  long  verse-para- 
graph, italicising  the  syllables  that  have  assonance 
or  rime.  And  I  use  a  paragraph  in  which  M.  Fort, 
who  is  rather  irresponsible  in  this  respect,  allows 
their  full,  traditional  value  to  all  the  mute  e's  but 
two: 

"O  grave,  austere  pluie,  ou  monte  Tame  des  pierres  '^t 
qui  portez  en  vous  une  f  roide  lumier^',  glacez  mon  ame  en 
ieu,  rendez  mon  coeur  severe?,  imposez  la  irsdcheur  aux 
mains  que  je  vous  tends/  I/a verse  tombe  un  pen  .  .  . 
elle  tombe  .  .  .  ysittends  ,  .  .  Quoi  I  la  lune  se  leve? 
Quoi!  Forage  est  pasji.^  Quoi!  tout  le  del  en  {ieursp"  et 
I'air  sent,  par  houffees,  Toeillet,  la  tuhcveuse,  la  rose  et 
la  poussi^r^i?  Une  etoile  d'amour  sur  le  Louvre  a  gVisse^ 
J'achete  des  bouquets/  quoi  I  je  suis  insenj^.^  Et  je  ris 
de  mon  coeur,  et  je  cours  chez  Man^w,  des  roses  plein  les 
bras,  implorer  mon  pard(97Z<?"  ^ 

1  "O  grave,  austere  rain  into  which  has  risen  the  soul  of 
jewels  and  who  carry  in  yourself  a  cold  light,  frost  over 
my  soul  on  fire,  make  my  heart  severe,  lay  freshness  on 
the  hands  that  I  stretch  out  to  you!  The  shower  falls  for  a 
little  ...  it  falls  ...  I  wait  .  .  .  What !  does  the  moon  arise  ? 

[62] 


This  exceedingly  beautiful  paragraph,  closely 
studied,  will  be  seen  to  consist  in  reality  of  twelve 
alexandrine  verses.  But  the  middle  csesura  is  so 
sharp  that  the  individual  music  of  the  hemistich 
is  constantly  stressed.  Of  these  twelve  alexan- 
drines the  first,  second  and  third  rime  (though  not 
quite  purely,  perhaps),  the  fourth  and  fifth,  the 
sixth  and  seventh.  The  eighth  is  blank  though 
I  am  rather  sure  that  M.  Fort  means  us  to  feel 
poussicre  as  echoing  the  earlier  severe  and  lu- 
miere;  the  ninth  rimes  with  both  the  first  and 
second  hemistich  of  the  tenth,  a  device  which  ac- 
celerates the  movement  of  the  verse,  and  the  elev- 
enth and  twelfth  rime  again  quite  regularly.  In 
addition  there  is,  I  am  equally  sure,  a  not  wholly 
unconscious  element  of  assonance  in  the  stave  end- 
ings :  feu^  frahheur^  peu,,  fleurs^  tuhcreuse. 

If  this  verse-paragraph  be  accepted  as  fairly 
representative  of  M.  Fort's  manner  of  writing,  and 
if  my  analysis  of  it  be  correct,  it  is  obviously 

What!  has  the  storm  gone  by?  What?  Does  the  sky  burst 
into  flowers?  and  the  air  smells,  by  gusts,  of  the  carnation  and 
the  tuberose,  of  roses  and  of  dust?  Has  a  star  of  love  glided 
over  the  Louvre?  I  buy  posies!  How!  am  I  beside  myself? 
And  I  laugh  from  my  heart,  and  I  run  to  Manon,  my  arms  full 
of  roses,  to  implore  my  forgiveness?" 

[63] 


wrong  to  regard  him  as  primarily  a  writer  of  very 
free  verse  or  of  mere  poetic  prose  with  an  occa- 
sional rime.  And  so  the  question  arises:  Is  his 
typographical  form  a  mere  crotchet?  It  is  not. 
One  need  but  read  once  more  the  paragraph  I  have 
quoted — read  it  quite  naturally  and  simply  now 
without  any  thought  of  its  prosodic  method — to 
feel  that  here  is  a  new  poetic  style  in  French,  in- 
comparable in  its  ease,  its  grace,  its  fluidity,  fol- 
lowing and  never  doing  violence  to  the  emotion, 
modulated  to  the  very  tones  of  the  human  voice. 
Or,  more  specifically,  M.  Fort's  manner  of  writing 
and  printing  gives  him  these  advantages:  The 
sentences  are  not  broken  by  prosodic  divisions  but 
flow  on  freely.  Yet  the  verse  music  is  never  lost. 
The  diction  can  be  as  natural,  as  unpoetical  (in 
the  older  sense)  as  he  pleases.  Yet  it  is  never 
felt  to  jar  through  its  contrast  with  the  associa- 
tions of  traditional  verse.  He  can  restrict  or  mul- 
tiply his  rimes  at  will  and  unobtrusively  and  hence 
use  them  to  express  the  color  and  tone  of  the  im- 
mediate poetic  mood  and  moment.  So  he 
achieves,  I  must  use  the  words  once  more,  an  ease, 

[64] 


a  grace,  a  fluidity  of  poetic  movement  which  are 
as  new  as  they  are  beautiful. 

His  manner  of  writing  grew  naturally  from  his 
character  as  a  man  and  a  poet.  Whether  upon 
some  reasoned  philosophic  view  or  not,  M.  Fort  is 
satisfied  with  the  appearanQe^^.oL  things.  The 
beauty,  the  charm,  the  quaintness,  the  light  and 
shade  of  the  visible  world — whether  in  nature  or 
in  the  gestures  of  present  and  historic  man  or  in 
the  colorful  and  significant  events  in  his  own  life 
— these  suffice  him.  He  thrills  with  the  beauty 
and  interest,  the  play  and  manifoldness  of  the 
visible.  He  keeps  himself  passive  and  lets  the 
beauty  of  the  world  strike  endless  music  from 
him.  He  hesitates  to  cut  and  shape  and  pattern 
the  music  of  the  world's  beauty  which,  like  the 
melody  of  Wagner,  is  without  pause  or  end. 
Long  ago,  in  his  earlier  Ballades  frangaises  he 
wrote : 

"Laisse  ordonner  le  del  a  tes  yeux,  sans  comprendre, 
et  cree  de  ton  silence  la  musique  des  nuits."  ^ 

1  "Let  the  sky  order  (things)  for  thine  eyes,  without  under- 
standing them,  and  create  with  thy  silence  the  music  of  the 
nights." 

[65] 


And  more  recently  and  directly  in  the  really  mag- 
nificent Vision  harmonieuse  de  la  Terre  of  his 
Hymns  de  Feu: 

"Et  ne  vous  voyez  pas  que  les  hommes  seraient  dieux, 
s'ils  voulaient  m'ecouter,  laisser  vivre  leurs  sens,  dans  le 
vent,  sur  la  terre,  en  plein  del,  et  loin  d'eux !  Ah,  que  n'y 
mettent  ils  un  peu  de  complaisance !  Tout  I'univers  alors 
(recompense  adorable!)  serait  leur  ame  eparse,  leur  cceur 
inepuisable.  Etquedis-je?  lis  ont  tons  le  moyen  d'etre 
heureux.     *Laisse;  peiiser  ton  sens,  homme,  et  tu  es  ton 

If  there  is  danger  in  so  complete  a  surrender  to  the 
sensible  and  the  visible,  that  danger  has  not 
touched  M.  Fort  or  troubled  the  health  of  his  soul. 
He  is  the  serenest  and  most  joyous  of  modern 
poets,  though  he  can  be  deeply  grave  and  tender. 
His  verse  has  something  of  the  blowing  of  the 
winds  of  spring,  of  the  ripple  and  flow  of  the 
earth's  waters.  It  communicates  to  us  a  sense  of 
the  undying  delight  that  is  in  his  own  heart. 

1  "And  do  you  not  see  that  men  would  be  gods,  if  they  would 
but  hear  me,  would  but  let  their  senses  live  in  the  wind,  upon 
earth,  in  the  full  sky,  and  far  from  them?  Ah,  why  do  they 
not  strive  to  yield  a  little  there!  All  the  universe  (adorable  re- 
ward) would  be  their  dispersed  soul,  their  inexhaustible  heart. 
And,  what  do  I  say?  They  all  have  the  means  of  being  happy. 
Xet  thy  senses  think  for  thee,  O  man,  and  thou  art  thy  God.* " 

[66] 


Among  the  slightly  older  or  younger  contem- 
poraries of  M.  Fort  various  poetic  methods  and 
kinds  have  been  cultivated.  M.  Pierre  Louys 
(b.  1870)  may  be  called  a  Neo-Parnassien.  His 
work  is  chiseled  and  lustrous,  but  a  little  conscious 
and  hard.  M.  Edmond  Rostand's  (b.  1868) 
genius  shows  to  less  advantage  in  his  personal 
lyrics  and  ballads  than  in  the  glow  and  abundance 
of  his  famous  plays.  He  is,  of  course,  in  the 
strictly  French  sense,  a  Neo-Romantic,  a  de- 
scendant of  Lamartine  and  Hugo.  So  also  is  M. 
Leo  Larguier  (b.  1878)  who  clings  to  the  roman- 
tic alexandrine,  but  whose  admirable  talent  per- 
suades the  ear  as  well  as  the  emotions.  MM. 
Paul  Souchon  (b.  1874)  and  Maurice  Magre 
(b.  1878)  have  cultivated  an  intelligent  and 
agreeable  naturalism  which  one  would  like  to  see 
flourish  in  the  French  poetry  of  to-day  more  than 
it  does. 

I  pass  on,  quite  briefly,  to  the  latest  movement, 
the  youngest  group.  The  aims  of  these  poets  are 
not  yet  very  clearly  defined;  their  names  are 
scarcely  known  beyond  certain  circles  in  France. 
One  may  mention  MM.  Andre  Spire,  Leon  Deu- 

[67] 


bel,  Rene  Arcos,  Jules  Romains,  Charles  Vildrac 
and  Georges  Duhamel.  Several  of  them,  notably 
MM.  Spire  and  Duhamel,  are  cultivating  free 
verse  not  in  the  symbolist  sense  but  in  the  con- 
temporary American  sense  of  Miss  Amy  Lowell 
and  Mr.  Edgar  Lee  Masters.  What  effects  of 
permanent  importance  or  beauty  can  be  thus 
achieved  in  the  very  fluid  medium  of  French  re- 
mains to  be  seen.  The  longer  lines,  as  in  the 
third  paragraph  of  M.  Duhamel's  Annunciation 
(lix)  tend  to  approach  the  alexandrine  rhythm; 
the  shorter  lines,  as  in  the  last  paragraph  of  the 
same  poem,  seem  often  about  to  fall  into  some 
verse  pattern  dimly  present  in  the  poet's  mind. 
Whether  using  any  such  pattern  or  not,  all  these 
poets  have  thrown  off  the  last  restraints  of  the 
older  French  prosody  and  strive  after  a  larger, 
subtler,  more  intellectual  music.  Their  under- 
standing of  this  whole  matter  has  been  set  down 
I  very  clearly  and  acutely  by  MM.  Vildrac  and  Du- 
I  hamel  in  their  Notes  sur  la  Technique  poetique 
(1910).  According  to  this  little  treatise  a  ten- 
able theory  of  versification  must  be  "based  upon 
the  inner  (subjective)  metric  and  phonetic  rela- 

[68] 


tions."  These  relations  seem  to  demand,  in  every 
verse  or  line,  a  constant  element  or  rhythmic  unit 
— either  the  first  or  second  stave.  If  both  parts 
or  staves  of  the  line  conform  to  this  norm,  the 
verse  is  regular  or  traditional.  If  the  rhythmic 
unit  be  represented  but  once  in  each  line,  if,  in 
other  words,  each  line  consist  of  a  rhythmic  con- 
stant plus  a  rhythmic  variable,  the  verse  is  free. 
Some  close  observation  of  modern  verse  of  dif- 
ferent types  will,  I  think,  convince  any  compe- 
tent reader  that  this  theory  is  far  more  sensible 
and  helpful  than  such  statements  of  prosodic  prin- 
ciple are  apt  to  be.  It  is  too  soon,  of  course,  to 
offer  a  definite  critical  interpretation  of  these,  the 
youngest  poets  of  France.  But  one  may  say  that, 
like  the  Symbolists,  though  with  even  larger  liber- 
ties of  form,  they  deal  with  their  subjective  vision 
of  things,  that  they,  too,  have  a  tendency  to  with- 
draw from  the  dust  and  heat  of  the  race  into  the 
twilit  chambers  of  th^-soul.  .  /"^T**^**"^ 

That  withdrawal  characterises,  with  exceptions 
more  apparent  than  real,  all  the  poets  of  modern 
France.     Verhaeren  seems  an  exception,  but  we 

[69] 


must  remember  that  he  was  not  a  Frenchman  at 
all;  M.  Jammes  seems  another,  but  he  has  with- 
drawn from  the  life  of  thought  as  truly  as  the 
others  have  from  the  life  of  fact.  In  practically 
all  the  modern  poetry  of  France  the  substance  oi 
literature  has  been  transmuted  into  the  stuff  of 
dreams,  transposed  into  the  regions  of  revery. 
The  subjectivity  of  this  poetry  is  so  high  that  it 
has  absorbed  the  world  into  itself.  After  cen- 
turies of  a  literary  life  in  which  the  social,  the 
general,  the  typical,  the  objective  employed  all  the 
creative  energies  of  France,  these  poets  could  not 
go  beyond  the  discovery  of  the  world  within,  the 
simple  finding  of  their  self-hood.  But  there  has 
been  among  them  hitherto  no  personality  so  bal- 
anced, so  fully  self -achieved  as  to  grapple  with 
reality,  interpreting  or  transforming  it  by  the 
power  of  the  creative  intellect,  of  the  creative 
imagination.  That,  I  take  it,  should  be  the  next 
step,  the  next  development  in  the  poetry  of  France. 
A  movement  that  brought  forth  such  personalities 
would  give  to  French  literature  a  poetry  more 
bracing,  even  though  less  charming,  not  quite  so 
beautiful  but  more  valorous  and  severe. 

[70] 


THE  POETS  OF  MODERN  FRANCE 


Art  only^  when  all's  dust 
Through  endless  years  shall  dwells 
The  bust 
Outlasts  the  citadel. 

The  austere  coin  that  lies 
Beneath  a  digger's  heel 
Shall  rise 
A  Casar  to  reveal. 

.  The  gods  have  fled  their  fanes: 
Eternal  art  alone 
Remains — 
Stronger  than  brass  or  stone. 

Theophile  Gautier 


STEPHANE  MALLARME 


APPARITION 


The  moon  grew  sad.     The  tear-stained  seraphim 
Adream  drew  with  their  bows  amid  the  dim 
Mist  of  calm  flowers  from  failing  viol-strings 
White  grief  that  to  the  azure  petal  clings^— 

f'^'^u  had  first  kissed  me  on  that  blessed  day. 
'  thought  in  its  strange,  self -tormenting  way 
t  all  the  subtle  melancholy  sting 
lich,  even  without  regret,  the  gathering 
any  dream  leaves  in  the  dreamer's  heart. 
Mme  eyes  fixed  on  the  stones  I  walked  apart 
When,  with  your  sunny  hair,  in  that  old  street 
And  in  the  gloom  you  came  with  laughter  sweet, 
Like  to  that  fairy  with  great  aureole 
Who  once,  in  dreams  of  childhood,  touched  my 

soul, 
And  who  from  half-closed  hands  would  ever  throw 
Clusters  of  fragrant  stars  like  gleaming  snow. 


[73] 


PAUL  VERLAINE 
II 

MY    FAMILIAR   DREAM 

Often  a  strange  and  poignant  dream  is  mine 
Of  an  unknown  lady  whom  I  love  and  who 
Loves  me,  forever  one  yet  other,  too. 
And  constant  only  in  her  love  divine. 

Only  for  her  my  heart's  confusions  shine, 
Only  for  her,  alas,  who  can  gaze  through 
My  enigmatic  soul,  who  heals  the  dew 
On  my  pale  forehead  with  her  tears  benign. 

Is  she  dark,  russet,  blonde?     Her  name!     Who 

knows? 
Sweet  and  sonorous  as  the  name  of  those 
Beloved  ones  whom  life  to  exile  drove. 

Her  eyes  are  with  a  marble  calmness  filled. 
And  her  grave  voice  holds  the  faint  echo  of 
The  cadence  of  dear  voices  that  are  stilled. 

[74] 


Ill     ' 

SENTIMENTAL    DIALOGUE  -yi^^..^^^^^^^ 

In  the  old  park,  lonely  and  bound  by  frost  •  ^--^ 

Two  forms  just  passed  and  were  in  darkness  lost.    -^v-ipXi 

Their  lips  are  pale  and  moist,  their  eyes  are  dead, 
Almost  inaudible  the  words  they  said. 

In  the  old  park,  lonely  and  bound  by  frost. 
Two  ghosts  recalled  the  perished  days  they  lost. 

''Do  you  remember  our  old,  mad  delight?" 
"Why  would  you  have  me  think  of  it  to-night?" 

''Still  at  my  name  does  your  heart  throb  and  glow? 
And  in  your  dreams  your  soul  still  sees  me?" — 
"No." 

"O  goodly  days  of  joy  that  we  have  seen 
When  our  lips  clung  and  clung  .  .  ."     "It  may 
have  been !" 


[75] 


''How  blue  was  heaven  and  how  our  hope  out- 
spread !" 
"To  a  black  sky  those  perished  hopes  have  fled  I" 

They  walk  recalling  a  wild,  graceless  day, 
And  only  night  can  hear  the  words  they  say. 


[76] 


IV 


THE    GOODLY    SONG  "T   t/ 

Sad  and  lostl  walked  where  wide  Jf^^ 

And  treacherous  the  roadways  are.  A^  ^  /] 

Your  dear  hand  was  still  my  guide.  ^L^ 

Pale  on  the  horizon  far  '*'' 
A  frail  hope  of  day  was  shed. 
Your  glance  was  my  morning-star. 


No  sound  but  his  own  echoing  tread 
Brightened  the  poor  wanderer's  thought. 
Your  voice  spoke  of  hope  ahead. 

My  heart  with  gloom  and  terror  fraught 
Wept  at  the  melancholy  sight; 
Love  the  exquisite  victor  brought 

Us  to  each  other  in  delight. 


[77] 


A    SONG    WITHOUT    WORDS 

The  keyboard  which  frail  fingers  gently  stir 
Gleams  in  the  rose-grey  evening  incomplete, 
While  with  a  shadowy  and  wing-like  whir 
An  old  tune,  very  faint  and  very  sweet. 
Flutters  and  falters,  timid  and  discreet, 
Here  where  so  long  the  perfume  spoke  of  her. 

Can  it  be  gaiety,  can  it  be  pain 
That  sways  and  teases  my  poor  heart  at  it? 
What  would  you  have  of  me,  soft,  mocking  strain? 
What  did  you  want,  O  quavering  refrain 
That  through  the  open  window  soon  will  flit 
And  in  the  little  garden  die  again? 


[78] 


VI 

ANOTHER    SONG    WITHOUT    WORDS 

Too  red,  too  red  the  roses  were,     |^*^      g^y  J; 
Too  black  the  ivy  on  the  tree —  i 

Dear,  at  the  trembling  of  your  hair 
All  my  despair  comes  back  to  me. 

Too  blue  and  tender  was  the  sky, 
The  sea  too  green,  the  air  too  sweet — 

I  always  fear — why  should  not  I? — 
The  cruel  fleeing  of  your  feet. 

I  am  weary  of  leaves  bright  and  dim, 
Of  shining  box  and  sombre  yew. 

Of  the  horizon's  endless  rim, 

And  of  all  things  but  you  .  .  .  but  you.  .  .-* 


[79] 


VII 

LATE    WISDOM 

Above  the  roof,  the  sky  expands 
So  blue,  so  calm; 
Above  the  roof  a  tall  tree  stands 
And  rocks  its  palm. 

The  bell  that  in  the  sky  you  see 
Chimes  sweet  and  faint, 
A  bird  in  the  familiar  tree 
Sings  its  low  plaint. 

Dear  God,  dear  God,  life  glides  on  there 
In  tranquil  wise. 

That  peaceful  murmur  comes  from  where 
The  city  lies. 

O  you  who  stand  here  f^il]  of  tgnrg; 
That  flow^ands^flow. 
What  have  you  done  with  the  lost  jz^ajcs 
Of  long  ago.    .'3"'^^""'*""'^^"" 

[80] 


f  ARTHUR  RIMBAUD 

VIII      ^ 

THE    SLEEPER    OF    THE    VALLEY 

There's  a  green  hollow  where  a  river  sings 
Silvering  the  torn  grass  in  its  glittering  flight, 
And  where  the  sun  from  the  proud  mountain  flings 
Fire — and  the  little  valley  brims  with  light. 

A  soldier  young,  with  open  mouth,  bare  head, 
Sleeps  with  his  neck  in  dewy  water  cress, 
Under  the  sky  and  on  the  grass  his  bed, 
Pale  in  the  deep  green  and  the  light's  excess. 

He  sleeps  amid  the  iris  and  his  smile 

Is  like  a  sick  child's  slumbering  for  a  while. 

Nature,  in  thy  warm  lap  his  chilled  limbs  hide ! 

The  perfume  does  not  thrill  him  from  his  rest. 
He  sleeps  in  sunshine,  hand  upon  his  breast. 
Tranquil — with  two  red  holes  in  his  right  side. 

[81] 


GEORGES  RODENBACH 
IX 

IN    SMALL    TOWNS 

In  small  towns,  in  the  languid  morn  and  frail 
Chimes  the  far  bell,  chimes  in  the  sweetness  of 
Dawn  that  regards  thee  with  a  sister's  love, 
Chimes  the  far  bell — and  then  its  music  pale 
Falters  upon  the  roofs  like  flower  on  flower, 
And  on  the  stairs  of  gables,  dark  and  deep — 
Moist  blossoms  gathered  by  the  winds  that  sweep. 
The  morning  music  flutters  from  the  tower. 
From  far  away  in  garlands  dry  and  sere. 
Like  unseen  lilies  from  an  hour  that's  gone 
The  petals,  cold  and  pale,  drift  on  and  on 
As  from  the  dead  brow  of  a  perished  year. 


liSMNM' 


[82] 


EMILE    VERHAEREN 
X 


THE    MILL    * 


Deep  in  grey  dusk  the  mill  turns  faltering, 
Under  a  sombre,  melancholy  sky. 
It  turns  and  turns ;  its  earth-hued  wheel  drifts  by 
Endlessly  feeble  and  heavy  and  lingering. 

Since  dawn  its  arms  in  plaintive  gesture  rise 
Heavenward  and  fall  in  turn:  behold  them  there 
Drooping  again  deep  through  the  blackening  air 
And  utter  silence  of  a  world  that  dies. 

Over  the  hamlets  a  cold  day  foredonc 
Slumbers;  the  clouds  are  weary  of  voyaging. 
To  the  black  woods  the  massive  shadows  cling. 
To  an  horizon  dead  the  roads  run  on.  -*    "" 

Some  beechen  huts,  upon  the  roadway's  hem, 
Squat  in  a  wretched  circle ;  on  their  wall 
And  window  a  feeble  blotch  of  light  lets  fall 
A  copper  lamp  hanging  in  one  of  them. 

[83] 


.^  f  And  in  the  empty  vast  of  plain  and  skies 
Jf         These  poor,  pinched  hovels  fix  their  glances  vain 
J^  "S  From  under  lids  of  broken  window-pane 


7^ 


On  the  old  mill  that  turns  and  turns  and  dies. 


[84] 


XI 

tKJ  -  -.-•'^ 

NOVEMBER 


The  highways  run  in  figure  of  the  roodA  '^'"'^'^A^  ^'^ 
Infinitely  beyond  the  wood.  - »"      -A  .a^^i 


IP  roorrX    »^ 


And  far  away  beyond  the  plains  cross-wise. 

They  run  into  the  infinite  skies. 

Crosses  they  trace  even  as  they  fare 

On  through  the  cold  and  livid  air 

Where  wildly  streaming  the  wind  voyages 

To  the  infinite  beyond  the  trees.    <w^..,M^-«''^^'W^ 

The  trees  and  winds  like  unto  pilgrims  are, 
Sad  trees  and  mad  through  which  the  tempests  roll, 
Trees  like  long  lines  of  saints  coming  from  far, 
Like  the  long  lines  of  all  the  dead 
For  whom  the  dark  bells  toll. 

O  northern  trees,  astrain  for  life, 
And  winds  shattering  the  earth  they  sweep, 
O  keen  remorse,  O  human  sobs,  O  bitter  strife 
Writhing  in  mortal  hearts  and  ever  burrowing 
deep ! 

[85] 


November  crouches  by  the  feeble  hearth, 
And  warms  his  bony  fingers  at  the  flame ; 
O  hidden  dead  without  a  home  or  name, 
O  winds  battering  the  stubborn  walls  of  earth. 
Ever  hurled  back  from  them  and  thrown 
Out  into  vastnesses  unknown. 

O  all  saints'  names  scattered  in  litanies, 

O  all  ye  trees  below — 

O  names  of  saints  whose  vague  monotony  is 

Infinitely  drawn  out  in  memory ; 

O  praying  arms  that  be 

Madly  as  riven  branches  outstretched  wide 

To  some  strange  Christ  on  the  horizon  crucified. 

November  here  in  greyish  cloak  doth  hide 
His  stricken  terror  by  the  ingleside. 
And  turns  his  sombre,  sudden  glance 
Across  the  transept's  broken  panes  of  glass 
L  To  the  tormented  trees  and  winds  that  pass 
Pver  the  blind  and  terrible  expanse. 

The  saints,  the  dead,  the  trees  and  the  wild  wind. 
The  identical  and  dread  processions  go 

[86] 


Turning  and  turning  in  long  nights  of  snow ; 
The  saints,  the  dead,  the  trees  and  the  wild  wind, 
Blended  forever  in  our  memoried  hours 
When  the  great  hammer  blows 
That  in  the  echoing  bells  resonant  are 
Fling  forth  their  grief  to  the  horizon  far 
From  heights  of  imprecatory  towers. 

And  near  the  hearth  the  dark  November  lights 
With  trembling  hands  of  hope  for  winter  nights 
The  lamp  that  shall  burn  for  us  dim  and  high;- 
And  full  of  tears  suppliant  November  prays 
To  move  the  dull  hearts  of  the  sullen  days. 

And  ever,  in  the  woods  without,  the  iron-coloured 

sky, 
Ever  the  winds,  the  saints,  the  dead. 
And  the  processions  long  and  deep        .^  '  . 

Of  trees  with  tortured  boughs^oujgpr^ad  j^^^p""^'"'*'"''^^ 
That  from  the  world's  end  onward  sweep! 
Across  tfie  plains  the  high  roads  like  the  rood 
Onward  unto  the  infinite  stray, 
The  highways  and  their  crosses  far  away 
Infinitely  beyond  the  valley  and  wood. 

[87] 


XII 


THE    POOR 


With  hearts  of  poor  men  it  is  so : 
That  they  are  full  of  tears  that  flow, 
That  they  are  pale  as  head-stones  white 
In  the  moon  light. 

And  so  with  poor  men's  backs  it  is — 
More  bent  with  heavy  miseries 
Than  sagging  roofs  of  brown  huts  be 
Beside  the  sea. 

And  it  is  so  with  poor  men's  hands, 
Like  leaves  along  autumnal  lands, 
Leaves  that  lie  sere  and  dead  and  late 
Beside  the  gate. 

And  it  is  so  with  poor  men's  eyes, 
Humble  and  in  all  sorrow  wise. 
And  like  the  cattle's,  sad  and  dumb, 
When  the  storms  come. 

[88] 


Oh,  it  is  so  with  the  poor  folk 
That  under  misery's  iron  yoke 
Have  gestures  weary  and  resigned 
On  earth's  far  plains  of  sun  and  wind. 


[89] 


XIII 

LIFE 

To  exalt  thyself  all  life  exalted  deem, 
Lofty  above  their  lives  who  dare  aspire 

/Never  from  sin-wrought  woe  and  quenched  desire : 
C^  Reality  the  bitter  and  supreme 
^    J-  /  ■'       ■■■ —  - 
dU     ,■     Distils  a  liquor  strong  enough  and  red 

/i\/    t  To  burn  the  heart  and  the  enraptured  head. 

*Jr         Clean  wheat  from  which  all  tares  the  tempest 
blew ! 
Flame  chosen  from  a  thousand  once  so  bright 
With  legendary  splendor  sunk  in  night ! 
Man,  set  thy  foot  upon  the  real  and  true, 
That  arduous  path  unto  a  distant  goal, 
■^^Unarmed  but  for  thy  lucid  pride  of  soul ! 

^  jP^  March  boldly  in  thy  confidence  and  straight  •*" 
^^y*         At  hostile  circumstance  with  stubborn  hope, 
/^         And  with  its  harshness  let  thy  tense  will  cope, 
Or  thy  swift  wisdom,  or  thy  power  to  wait. 
And  deep  within  thee  mark  the  feeling  grow 
Of  power  increasing  as  the  bleak  days  go. 

[90] 


p 

In  love  of  others  find  thyself  again 
Who  by  that  self-same  fray  exalted  are 
Toward  the  same  future  heard  by  all  afar : 
Love  thou  their  equal  heart,  their  equal  brain 
Who  in  the  days  so  wild  and  black  and  brief 
Suffer  thy  dread,  thine  anguish  and  thy  grief. 

L    And  drink  so  deeply  of  this  human  strife — 
)  Whether  a  shadow  of  the  cosmic  wars 
/    Or  golden  change  amid  the  wandering  stars — 
\That  thou  feelst  all  the  thrill  and  pang  of  life,  ^ yf^ 
And  from  thy  heart  acceptest  the  stern  Jaw  \     .U^r 
That  holds  the  trembling  universe  in  awe.    1/     y^ 


law  "i  ^  i 


[91] 


JEAN  MOREAS 
XIV 

O    LITTLE    FAIRIES    .    .    . 

O  LITTLE  fairies,  under  your  long,  long  hair 
lYe  sang  to  me  so  sweetly  in  my  sleep, 

0  little  fairies,  under  your  long,  long  hair, 
In  the  charmed  forest  of  enchantment  deep. 

Mid  the  charmed  forest's  rites  of  mystery, 
Compassionate  gnomes,  while  I  was  sleeping  there. 
Offered  with  kind  and  honest  hands  to  me 
Even  while  I  slept,  a  sceptre  gold  and  fair. 

1  have  learned  since  that  all  is  false  and  vain: 
The  golden  sceptre  and  the  forest  lay, 

But  like  a  fretful,  credulous  child  I  fain 
Would  in  that  forest  sleep  my  life  away. 

What  matter  that  I  know  it  false  and  vain  .  .  . 


[92]! 


XV 

A   YOUNG   GIRL'   SPEAKS  9*^*'*^?^^-      " 

The  fennel  says:  so  mad  his  love, 

your  heart  it  craves  the  mercy  of. 

He's  coming!     Oh,  your  hands  bestir! — 

The  fennel  is  a  flatterer. 

Dear  God,  have  pity  on  my  soul. 

And  why,  oh  why,  the  daisy  saith, 
Put  all  your  faith  in  his  light  faith? 
His  heart  is  hard  with  lies  and  hate ! — 
Daisy,  your  warning  comes  too  late. 
Dear  God,  have  pity  on  my  soul. 

The  sage-plant  says :  await  him  not ! 
In  other  arms  he  has  forgot. — 
O  melancholy  sage,  I'd  wear 
Your  sad  leaves  braided  in  my  hair. 
Dear  God,  have  pity  on  my  soul. 


[93] 


XVI 


STANZAS 


v^- 


Say  not:  Life  is  one  joyous  festival 
And  a  base  soul  and  foolish  mind  betray — 
Nor  yet,  Black  misery  is  its  end  and  all, 
Through  courage  flagging  on  an  evil  way. 

Laugh  as  in  Spring  the  boughs  that  shake  and 

thrill. 
Weep  like  the  driven  waves  that  shoreward  stream, 
Taste  every  pleasure,  suffer  every  ill, 
And  say:  'Twas  much,  though  but  a  shade  and 

dream. 


When  the  heaviness  and  void 
Of  all  tragic  life  we  find, 
Then  the  stricken  soul  is  cloyed 
Even  with  tender  things  and  kind. 

[94] 


But  a  mystic  treasure's  gleam 

Flaming  for  a  little  while 

Flashes  forth  as  in  a  dream       I  ^^  t*-'-'^-'*'*'*^  "^^  ^^ 

And  the  pallid  lips  may  smile./     \ j^    y^ 


And  by  hope^s  glorified 
All  our  ancient,  dull  distress, 
As  a  ragged  hedgerow's  side 
By  a  young  flower's  loveliness. 


[95] 


^•vvl,*^ 


JULES  LAFORGUE 
XVII 

ANOTHER    BOOK.    .    •    . 

Another  book!     How  my  heart  flees 
From  where  these  pinchbeck  gentry  are, 
From  their  salutes  and  money  far, 
And  all  our  phraseologies ! 

Another  of  my  Pierrots  gone ! 

Too  lonely  in  this  world  was  he; 

Full  of  an  elegance  lunary 

The  soul  that  through  his  quaintness  shone. 

The  gods  depart;  the  fools  endure. 
Ah,  it  grows  worse  from  day  to  day ; 
My  time  is  up,  I  take  my  way 
Toward  the  Inclusive  Sinecure. 


[96] 


HENRI  DE  REGNIER 
XVIII 


<:l-"'c:^: 


./-" 


THE    FAIR    HANDS  ^'^  .   ^.-r-  jk^^  # 

Showing  the  whiteness  of  flesh  faint  and  fair    ''f^^J'*^ 
The  hands,  the  sweet  hands  that  have  never  spun, 
Reveal  their  jewelled  beauty  to  the  sun 
And  fingers  slim  that  braid  the  heavy  hair. 

O  hands,  you  gather  beside  the  waters  calm 

Great  lilies  of  the  river,  trembling  reed. 

And  from  the  neighbouring  mountain  choose  at 

need 
Peace  of  the  olive,  glory  of  the  palm. 

O  hands,  on  the  steep  river  bank  you  draw 
To  heal  the  brow  by  ancient  sin  dismayed, 
Holy  baptismal  waters  that  persuade 
Fair  forms,  new-garmented,  to  kneel  in  awe. 

O  hands  of  fragrant  flesh  whose  gesture  slow 
Draws  the  warm  blood  to  the  faint  finger-tips, 
The  weary  brows  o'er  which  your  beauty  slips 
Feel  heavenly  freshness  fall  like  healing  snow. 

[97] 


And  poets  In  their  red  and  scarlet  girt, 
Singing  the  sorrow  of  their  dream  exiled, 
Kiss  you,  dear  hands,  for  being  undefiled 
By  sordid  toil,  by  barren  tasks  unhurt. 


[98] 


XIX 


SCENE    AT    DUSK 


C^^ 


On  our  way  to  the  city  of  the  singing  street, 
Under  the  trees  whose  blossoms  are  like  bridal 

wreaths  hung  high, 
On  our  way  to  the  city  where  the  squares  are  sweet 
With  stillness  of  tired  dances  in  the  rosy  evening 

sky, 
Wc  met  upon  our  way  the  maidens  of  the  plain 
Who  to  the  fountains  fled  again 
So  swiftly  that  their  flight  was  pain. 
And  wc  did  pass  them  by. 

The  softness  of  clear  heaven  dwelt  in  their  sad- 
dened eyes, 

The  birds  of  dawn  were  singing  in  their  voices 
sweet. 

The  glances  of  their  eyes  was  gentleness  to  meet, 

And  like  doves'  voices  would  their  tender  voices 
rise.  _  ■  -;:     *     '"■-' 

JReserved  and  sad  they  sat  and  watched  us  all 
depart, 

Each  guarding  in  her  folded  hands  her  hidden 
heart. 

[99] 


And  then  we  met  the  dancers  on  our  way, 

After  their  laughing  and  their  tambourines  we 

went  astray 
To  lose  them  in  the  sombre  dusk  at  a  turning  of 

the  way  .  .  . 

We  go  back  to  the  city  of  the  singing  street 

To  seek  our  sweethearts  under  trees  and  drooping 

flowers, 
Where  in  the  silent  square  the  happy  chimes  are 

sweet. 
And  even  like  blossoms  shake  the  belfry  towers. 


Our  hopes  shall  enter  by  the  open  gate 

Like  fluttering  butterflies  with  outspread  wings 

and  light, 
And  with  the  swallows'  flight 
Who  soar  so  low  and  late. 

Weary  of  having  crossed  so  many  times  the  sea — 
And  toward  dark  corners  and  on  bright  pavements 

we 
Shall  let  our  hopes,  glad  shadows,  float  in  air 
Like  flower  petals  marvellously  fair 
Shed  by  an  April  evening  upon  lovely  hair. 

[lOO] 


XX 

A    LESSER   ODE  y|^   K***" 

A  LITTLE  reed  has  been  enough  /av'^^'^^v 

To  make  the  high  grass  shake  and  thrill, 

The  willows  tall, 

The  meadow  wide, 

The  brooklet  and  the  song  thereof; 

A  little  reed  has  been  enough 

To  make  the  forest  musical. 

The  passers-by  have  heard  the  song 
In  the  deep  evening,  in  their  thoughts 
Whether  in  silence  or  in  storm. 
Or  faint  or  strong, 
Or  near  or  far.  ... 
The  passers-by  in  their  own  thoughts 
Hearing  it,  in  their  deepest  souls 
Will  hear  it  now  forevermore — 
A  singing  reed. 

It  was  enough — 

This  little  reed  once  gathered  of 

[101] 


rlleeds  -Sy  the  f cuiitain  where  one  day 
Love  came  to  stay 
And  see  his  grave 
Face  sorrowing — 
To  make  the  passing  people  cry 
And  grass  and  water  tremble  so; 
And  I  who  on  this  reed  could  blow 
Have  made  the  very  forest  sing. 


[102] 


XXI 


INSCRIPTION    FOR   A    CITY's    GATE    OF    WARRIORS    \,>0^^ 

Fear  not  the  shadow !     Open,  lofty  gate, 
Thy  door  of  bronze,  thy  door  of  iron  straight.       ^kV#n*^ 
Deep  in  a  well  men  have  cast  down  thy  key. 
Accursed  thou  if  terror  closes  thee ; 
Sever  with  keen  and  double-edged  blade 
Hands  that  have  shut  thee  and  that  have  be- 
trayed. 
For  under  thy  dark  vault  rank  forth  the  feet 
Of  marching  men  who  never  knew  retreat, 
And  in  their  midst,  poised  nobly  as  of  old, 
Went  naked  Victory  with  wings  of  gold. 
And   with  calm   wave   of  sword   their  banners 

led. 
Upon  their  lips  her  ardent  kisses  bled, 
And  at  their  crimson  mouths  the  trumpets  rang 
With  murmur  of  fierce  bees  and  copper  clang ! 
Wild  swarms  of  war,  from  hives  of  armor  go, 
Pluck  from  ripe  flesh  the  flowers  of  death  that 
^     ^glow. 
And  if  ye  to  these  native  walls  return, 

[103] 


*^ 


See  that  upon  my  marble  threshold  burn, 

When  beneath  Victory's  wings  has  passed  your 

tread, 
Stains  of  clear  blood  from  sandals  steeped  in  red. 


[104] 


XXII     , 

ON    THE    SHORE 


^""ti^ 


Rest  on  the  shore  and  take  in  your  two  hands, 

And  let  them  slip  out  grain  by  grain,  the  sands 

Whose  paler  hue  the  sun  turns  into  gold; 

Then,  ere  you  close  your  eyes,  once  more  behold 

Harmonious  ocean  and  transparent  sky, 

And  when  you  feel  most  faintly,  by  and  by, 

That  in  your  lightened  hand  is  not  a  grain, 

Consider  ere  you  lift  your  lids  again  L JU*-A^ 

That  life  takesfrom  us  and  gives  evergafifef     '..-.—-     '■" 

Our  fleeting  sands  to  the  eternal  shore.  (^  v.  .Jj^^^-p^^^ 


[105] 


XXIII 

^^ 

THE    FOREST  ri( 

Heroic  forest  of  legend  and  of  dream, 

If  truth  no  more  thy  fabled  lies  I  deem, 

And  if  upon  thy  paths  I  meet  no  more 

The  weeping  princesses  I  met  of  yore, 

Nor  the  great,  armored  knights  upon  their  way 

Toward  caves  where  some  enchanted  beauty  lay. 

Against  whose  coming  opened,  as  by  fate. 

The  Keep  of  Sadness  or  Love's  Orchard-gate — 

What  matters  it?     Hast  thou  not,  without  cease, 

By  turn  thy  silences  and  harmonies, 

Thy  gentle  Springs,  rich  Summers  and  in  them 

Thy  ripeness  with  its  cloak  and  diadem? 

Hast  thou  not,  happy  forest.  Autumns  rolled 

In  purple  vestiture  and  crowned  with  gold? 

Hast  thou  not  pine  serene  and  oak-tree  strong. 

And  frailer  trunks  that  chant  a  wind-swept  song? 

0  forest  multitudinous  as  the  sea. 
Whose  perfumes,  in  their  turns,  as  bitter  be, 
As  sweet  as  life,  as  strong,  as  full  of  fret.  .  .  . 

1  came  to  thee  to  live  and  to  forget 

[106] 


That  once  my  vision  was  with  fables  fed, 

For  my  dream  heroes  and  my  gods  are  dead. 

To  make  thee  live,  to  animate  thy  shade. 

One  need  but  be  alone  and  undismayed, 

Nor  see  in  briery  hollow  and  cool  brake 

Phantoms  of  dream  or  sacred  creatures  wake 

To  fill  thy  mystery  and  solitude. 

Art  thou  not  lovelier  in  thy  lonely  mood 

When  none  dare  stir  the  greenness  of  thy  night? 

For  the  horned  Fauns  who  danced  in  loud  delight 

On  the  pine  cones,  on  Autumn's  foliage  dry 

Are  gone,  their  hoofs  upon  the  flints  that  fly 

Waken  no  more  the  echoes  of  the  glades; 

The  nymphs  have  left  the  springs  like  fleeting 

shades, 
No  more  their  fugitive  forms,  as  water  clear, 
Misty  and  empty  as  the  winds  appear. 
And  the  tree  hides,  closing  its  cloven  bark, 
The  naked  Dryad  in  the  silence  dark 
A  prisoner  forever. 

No  man's  sight 
Sees  that  strange  pagan  and  heraldic  fight 
Under  the  branches  by  the  onset  torn 
Of  red-haired  Centaur  and  white  Unicorn. 
[107] 


XXIV 


CHRYSILLA 


Spare  me  from  seeing,  goddess,  by  my  bed 
When  comes  the  dark  hour  of  the  final  blow, 
Tardy  Time  cut  without  regret  or  woe 
A  long  life's  lingering  and  importunate  thread. 

Arm  rather  Love  who  long  desired  me  dead. 
And  would  his  stab  supreme  might  wound  me  so. 
That  from  the  heart  he  hated  forth  would  flow 
My  mortal  blood  staining  the  earth  with  red. 

But  no !     At  eve  let  me  have  vision  there 
Of  my  blithe  youth,  naked  and  still  and  fair 
And  letting  rose-leaves  upon  water  drift ! 

Then  I  shall  hear  the  fountain's  farewell  sighs 
And  without  need  of  sword  or  arrow  swift 
Close  unto  everlasting  night  mine  eyes. 


[108] 


FRANCIS  VIELE-GRIFFIN 


i^V*-^- 


XXV      V  X 

OTHERS    WILL    COME  ^V*^  fl      <&^        ^ 

Others  will  come  across  the  plain    -^^^  i^*^  ^ 
Near  you  beside  the  gate  to  sit,  «  ,^^-*-^^ 

And  you  will  smile  at  all  your  train 
Of  lovers,  young  and  exquisite. 

They  will  follow,  follow,  fleet 

Your  spring-time  and  its  radiant  glow — 

Why  so  very  swift  their  feet? 

I  was  twenty  once  ...  I  know. 

All  your  smiles  are  now  their  own. 
All  your  magic  youth  and  strong  .  .  • 
What  matter  they?     For  I  alone 
Poured  your  sweetness  into  song. 


[109] 


3^IS    TIME    FOR    US    TO    SAY    GOOD    NIGHT 

'Tis  time  for  us  to  say  good-night, 
Fair  hours  with  dreams  and  roses  bright, 
/^         T^ow  fled  forever  with  all  lost  delight.  .  .  . 

For  thee  I  waited  as  one  waits  for  love, 
Kept  my  soul  white  to  dream  of  when  we  meet. 
Guarded  my  pureness  for  thy  shoulder  sweet 
That  was  to  tremble  with  the  kiss  thereof. 

Whenever  from  afar  I  raised  mine  eyes, 
In  the  young  grass  rustled  thy  shadowy  shape, 
Thy  hand  did  pluck  the  berry  of  the  grape. 
And  thy  step  fluttered  like  a  bird  that  flies. 

Thou  wert  my  hope.     Yet  now  that  thou  hast 

been, 
So  fragile  in  thy  beauty  and  serene, 
With  love  and  laughter  girt,  yet  gone  away  .  .  . 
'Twixt  past  and  future  there  seems  no  to-day. 
And  I  have  known  thee  not,  I  swear,  nor  seen. 


GUSTAVE  KAHN 
XXVII 

SONG  _  vr^  ^ 

O  LOVELY  April,  rich  and  bright, 

What  is  thy  clarion  song  to  me? 

Pale  lilac,  hawthorne  or  that  golden  light 

The  sun  pours  through  each  tree. 

If  my  dear  love  is  far  away 

And  in  the  Northern  gloom  must  stay. 

O  lovely  April  rich  and  bright; 

Meetings  are  merciless  and  strange  and  sweet, 

O  lovely  April  rich  and  bright. 

She  comes  to  me.     Thy  lilacs  white. 

Thy  sunshine's  golden  wealth  of  light 

Will  charm  me  when  at  last  we  meet, 

O  lovely  April  rich  and  bright. 


[Ill] 


XXVIII 


PROVENCE 


Hers  is  a  fine  and  buoyant  face ; 

Yet  the  small  features  have  a  noble  trace; 

Her  flesh's  clear  grace 

Evokes  no  floral  image  of  delight; 

'Tis  the  flesh's  grace,  even  as  through  space 

The  silver  of  star-light. 

Broad  is  her  brow, 

White  as  the  temple  where  but  now 

Has  prayed  a  faithful  worshipper; 

Of  deepest  red  the  lips  of  her, 

Not  purple  as  the  bauble  of  a  king, 

But  like  a  bay  whose  savor  has  a  sting, 

A  savor  with  a  hint  of  pain 

Which  being  gathered  lives  again. 

Under  our  kisses  lives  again. 

Symbol  of  all  faint  hope  and  longing  vain. 

Soft  are  her  eyes  seeing  naught  save  . 

Seas  of  a  silvery  blue  and  gardens  by  the  wave. 

[112] 


They  keep  a  wide  attentive  air 
Wounded  by  the  music  fair 
Of  sweet  songs  that  rise  and  fall 
In  soft  speech  of  that  litoral, 
Ardent  and  fragrant  by  the  free 
Divine  Mediterranean  sea. 

And  when  she  smiles, 

There  is  clearness  on  the  isles. 

The  far,  white  isles  from  which  is  bome 

When  awakens  the  fresh  morn 

Radiance  of  golden  sheaves  to  her, 

And  of  tall  grass  made  tenderer. 


[nS] 


A 


STUART  MERRILL 
XXIX 

AGAINST   THY    KNEES    .    .    . 

Against  thy  knees  my  pallid  brow 
Amid  the  fading  roses  there; 
J^        O  lady  of  Autumn,  love  me  now 
^^Kr  Before  the  black  days  chill  the  air. 

And  move  thy  gentle  hands  that  seem 
To  ease  my  heart,  to  heal  the  sting ! 
Of  my  ancestral  kings  I  dream, 
But  thou,  lift  up  thine  eyes,  and  sing. 

Soothe  me  with  haunting  ditties  old, 
And  songs  of  valor  that  has  been. 
Of  kings  who  in  their  ruddy  gold 
Died  at  the  feet  of  maid  and  queen. 

And  when  thy  liquid  voice  shall  rise 
Recalling  epic  and  romance. 
And  cry  even  as  the  bugle  cries 
Above  the  harsh  swords'  flash  and  dance, 
[114] 


For  gentle  death  I  shall  be  fain 
Amid  thy  roses,  O  my  love, 
Too  cowardly  to  win  again 
The  kingdom  they  have  robbed  me  of. 


[H5] 


XXX 

THE    PROMISE    OF    THE    YEAR 

Oh,  come  with  crowns  of  primroses  that  in  your 

hands  are  borne, 
Maidens  weeping  for  a  sister,  for  a  sister  dead  at 

dawn, 
The  bells  of  all  the  valley  ring  out  for  her  that's 

gone. 
And  one  sees  the  shovels  flashing  in  the  sunlight 

of  the  morn. 

With  baskets  of  blue  violets,  come  ye  maidens  all 
Who  waver  at  the  beech-trees  that  your  sunny 

road  runs  by. 
Because  the  solemn,  priestly  words  have  made  your 

hearts  feel  shy. 
Come,  for  with  unseen  swallows  the  sky  is  musical ! 

For  this  is  the  feast  of  death  and  it  seems  a  sabbath 

day; 
Many  bells  are  sounding  sweet  in  all  the  valleys 

wide; 

[h6J 


And  in  the  shadows  of  the  lanes  the  lads  have  gone 

to  hide, 
While  you  must  go  alone  unto  her  white,  white 

tomb  to  pray. 

But  in  some  new  year  the  lads  who  to-day  slip 

out  of  sight 
Will  come  and  tell  to  all  of  you  the  lovely  grief 

of  love, 
And  around  the  merry  May-pole  one  will  hear 

your  singing  of 
The  roundelays  of  childhood  to  salute  the  starry 

night. 


[117] 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 
XXXI 

THE    SEVEN    DAUGHTERS    OF    ORLAMONDE 

The  seven  daughters  of  Orlamonde 
When  the  Fay  was  dead, 
The  seven  daughters  of  Orlamonde 
To  seek  a  doorway  fled. 

Lit  their  seven  lamps  and  opened 
All  the  towers  of  night, 
Oh,  they  opened  four  hundred  halls 
And  found  no  light.  .  .  . 

And  came  unto  sonorous  caves, 
Entered  falteringly, 
And  beside  a  closed  door 
Found  a  golden  key. 

Saw  the  ocean  through  the  chinks 
Strange  and  infinite, 
And  knocked  against  that  closed  door 
And  dared  not  open  it. 
[118] 


XXXII 

I    HAVE    SOUGHT    .    .    . 


I  HAVE  sought  thirty  years,  my  sisters, 
Where  he  hid  I  sought; 
I  have  walked  thirty  years,  my  sisters, 
I  have  found  him  not. 

I  have  walked  thirty  years,  my  sisters, 

Weary  my  footfall ; 

He  is  everywhere,  my  sisters. 

And  is  not  at  all. 

The  hour  is  growing  sad,  my  sisters. 
Take  my  shoes  and  part; 
For  as  evening  wanes,  my  sisters, 
1  am  sick  at  heart    .  .  . 


^ 


you  are  very  young,  my  sisters. 

Wander  on  and  on ; 

Take  my  pilgrim's  staff,  my  sisters. 

Seek  as  I  have  done.  .  .  . 

Q    — — -■■ 

[119] 


REMY  DE  GOURMONT_ 
XXXIII  .     _^    -l^r^"^ 

THE    SNOW 


^y^^^r-A  ^^ 


Simon E,  white  as  thy  throat  the  snow  I  see, 
Simone,  the  snow  is  white  as  is  thy  knee. 

Simone,  thy  hand  is  cold  even  as  the  snow, 
Simone,  thy  heart  is  cold  even  as  the  snow. 

The  kiss  of  fire  will  melt  the  snow's  cold  heart. 
But  thine  melts  only  when  we  kiss  to  part. 

The  snow  is  sad  on  the  pine-branches  there. 
Thy  brow  is  sad  under  its  chestnut  hair. 

In  the  courtyard  thy  sister  snow  sleeps  now, 
My  snow,  Simone,  and  all  my  love  art  thou. 


[120] 


XXXIV 

THE    EXILE    OF    BEAUTY       /^xi.y^'-'VV'*^-'*'-*"'*:^^ 

/^  Go  seeking  in  the  human  forest  old        4*/ a^tv^  iC^ 
j  The  shelter  for  thy  flickering  life  foretold,    ^       ^ 
^or  tremble  so  when  evening  damps  oppress  thy 

veins  with  cold; 
Think  that  the  withered  flesh  no  Springtime  can 

beguile, 
And  keep  about  thy  pallid  lips  the  shadow  of  a 

smile. 
Take  thou  both  staff  and  scrip  upon  thy  ways, 
And  over  the  fields  follow  thou  still  the  trace 
Of  the  tall  oxen  when  to  plough  they  go. 
Or  children  seeking  where  new  flowers,  the  flowers 

of  passion  grow. 
Perhaps  thou  wilt  find  love  in  that  lone  land 
Or  death,  or  poor  men  who  stretch  forth  their 

hand 
Toward  thy  heart  and  wish  thee  dead; 
And  thou  wilt  give  them  what  thou  hast,  a  little 

barley  bread; 
But  they  will  speak  in  hostile  wise 

[121] 


And  at  their  impure  words  the  tears  will  start  into 

thine  eyesr 
Weep  not  I     The  gods  with  lofty  head, 
Though  into  exile  driven  the  floor  of  heaven  tread. 
Thy  divine  bareness  keep  from  hypocrites  apart, 
Be  ugliness  to  them,  though  Beauty's  self  thou  art. 


[122] 


ALBERT  SAMAIN 
XXXV 

EVENING 

The     evening's     angel     passes     where     flowers 

glow  .  .  . 
Our  Lady  of  Dreams  now  chants  her  solemn 

hymn ; 
The  sky  wherein  the  hues  of  day  dislimn 
Prolongs  their  faintness  into  subtle  woe. 

The  evening's  angel  passes  the  hearts  arow  .  .  . 
The  impassioned  air  sways  the  girls  warm  and 

slim; 
And  on  the  flowers  and  on  the  virgins  dim 
Falls  lovely  pallor  gradual  as  snow. 

The  garden's  roses  have  a  weary  grace, 

The  soul  of  Schumann  wandering  through  space 

Wkh  an  immedicable  pain  is  crying.  .  .  . 

Somewhere,  afar,  a  gentle  child  is  dying  .  .  . 
Place  in  the  book  of  hours,  my  soul,  a  sign, 
An  angel  gathers  this  sad  dream  of  thine. 

[123] 


XXXVI 

PANNYRE    OF    THE    GOLDEN    HEELS 

On  the  loud  room  falls  silence  like  a  trance  .  .  . 
Pannyre  with  golden  heels  comes  forth  to  dance. 
A  thousand  folded  veil  covers  her  quite. 
With  a  long  trill  the  silver  flutes  invite. 
She  starts,  crosses  her  steps,  and  with  a  slow 
Movement  and  sinuous  her  lithe  arms  throw 
The  quivering  gauze  into  a  rhythm  bizarre, 
Which  spreads  and  undulates  and  floats  afar 
And  like  a  glittering  whirlwind  passes  by  .  .  . 

V  \   And  she  is  flower  and  flame  and  butterfly ! 
The  rapt  eyes  follow;  there  is  not  a  stir. 
The  fury  of  the  dance  enkindles  her. 
She  turns   and  whirls,   swifter  she  whirls   and 
wheels ! 

3>^The  mad  flame  in  the  golden  torches  reels!  .  .  . 
Suddenly,  in  the  middle  hall,  she  stops; 
The  veil,  but  now  a  flying  spiral,  drops 
Suspended,  marble-calm  each  long  fold  lies 
Clinging  to  pointed  breasts  and  polished  thighs, 
And  as  through  flowing  water's  silken  shine, 
Pannyre  now  flashes — ^naked  and  divine. 

[124] 


EDMOND  ROSTAND 
XXXVII 

THE    DRUMMER 

Early  before  the  unseen  cricket-choir 
Beats  its  small  cymbal,  twangs  its  little  lyre, 
When  rosy-green  the  dawning  sky's  unblurred. 
Over  the  white  road  of  the  mountain  fair, 
Wandereth  slowly,  playing  an  olden  air. 
The  drummer,  handsome  as  an  antique  herd. 

Under  the  pines  which  sprinkle  on  the  ways 

The    glittering    dews    of    dawn,    he    trills    and 

plays 
On  his  clear  fife,  even  like  a  whistling  bird. 
His  drum  swings  with  its  ribands  green  and  long. 
He  goes  to  sing  a  gallant  morning  song 
To  the  lady  by  whom  all  his  songs  are  heard. 

He  breathes  into  his  pipe  a  merry  air. 
Beating  the  time  upon  his  drum  from  where 
The  cadences  of  duller  sound  are  sent. 
The  little  fife  of  ivory  trills  and  rings, 

[125] 


And  the  drum  follows  the  bright  song  it  sings 
With  a  monotonous,  sad  accompaniment. 

Drummer  of  love,  lo,  how  our  fate  agrees ! 
I,  too,  blend  sad  and  merry  melodies! 
It  is  my  heart — that  sombre  tone  of  ill, 
Heavier  to  carry  than  your  drum,  my  lad! 
But  always,  o'er  its  plaintive  notes  and  sad, 
That  mocking  pipe,  my  spirit,  whistles  still ! 


[126] 


FRANCIS  JAMMES 
XXXVIII 

THAT    THOU    ART    POOR    .    .    . 

That  thou  art  poor  I  see : 
So  plain  thy  little  dress. 
Dear  heart  of  gentleness, 
My  grief  I  offer  thee. 

But  thou  art  lovelier 
Than  others ;  very  sweet 
Thy  fragrant  lips  to  meet 
That  my  slow  pulses  stir. 

And  thou  art  poor  and  true 
And  kind  as  the  poor  be, 
Wouldst  have  me  give  to  thee 
Kisses  and  roses  too. 

For  but  a  lass  thou  art, 
And  books  have  made  thee  dream, 
And  olden  stories  deem 
That  arbors  charm  the  heart, 
[127] 


Roses  and  mulberries 
And  flowers  of  the  plain, 
Of  which  the  poets  feign, 
And  boughs  of  rustling  trees. 

Yes,  thou  art  poor,  I  see: 
So  plain  thy  little  dress. 
Dear  heart  of  gentleness, 
My  grief  I  offer  thee. 


[128] 


XXXIX 


THE    TRAINED    ASS 


I'm  the  trained  ass,  the  very  ass  who  can 
Startle  the  learned,  counting  like  a  man. 
With  whip  in  hand  my  master  makes  me  climb 
An  old,  cracked  tub  and  balance  for  a  time. 
The  plaudits  of  the  crowd  his  zeal  enhance. 
So  down  I  step  and  next  am  forced  to  dance. 
''Where's  Paris?"  someone  asks.     My  foot  I  place 
O'er  the  right  spot  upon  the  map  of  France. 
Next:  "Ass,  survey  the  circle,  face  by  face. 
And  stop  and  with  your  nodding  head  point  out 
Among  the  audience  the  most  stupid  lout." 

...  I  obey,  quite  sure  that  I  make  no  mistake  . .  . 

My  mind,  each  time  he  wants  to  teach  me,  knows 

How  the  man  daily  in  his  ignorance  grows. 

At  night,  in  the  old  tent  that  flaps  and  jars 

Sadly  I  sleep  under  the  windy  sky. 

The  obsession  of  knowledge  haunts  me.     And  I  try 

In  my  nightmare  to  count  the  very  stars. 

[129] 


XL 

THE    CHILD    READS    AN    ALMANAC 

/■' 

The  child  reads  on;  her  basket  of  eggs  stands  by. 
She  sees  the  weather  signs,  the  Saints  with  awe, 
And  watches  the  fair  houses  of  the  sky: 
The  Goat^  the  Bull^  the  Rarn^  et  cetera.     . 

And  so  the  little  peasant  maiden  knows 
That  in  the  constellations  we  behold. 
Are  markets  like  the  one  to  which  she  goes 
Where  goats  and  bulls  and  rams  are  bought  and 
sold. 

She  reads  about  that  market  in  the  sky. 
She  turns  a  page  and  sees  the  Scales  and  then 
Says  that  in  Heaven,  as  at  the  grocery. 
They  weigh  salt,  coffee  and  the  souls  of  men. 


[130] 


XLI 

IN    AUTUMN 

You  see  in  Autumn  on  the  telegraph  wires 
The  swallows  shiver  in  a  long,  dark  line. 
You  feel  their  little,  cold  hearts  throb  and  pine. 
The  very  smallest,  having  seen  it  not, 
To  the  blue  sky  of  Africa  aspires. 

.  .  .  Having  seen  it  not,  I  say.     Even  as  wc 
Who  long  for  Heaven  in  our  restless  dread. 
They  perch,  watching  the  air  with  eager  head, 
Or  fly  in  little  circles  hesitantly. 
Ever  returning  to  the  self -same  spot. 

'Tis  hard  to  leave  the  church's  sheltering  porch! 
Hard  that  it  is  not  warm  as  in  past  days  I 
They  are  saddened  that  the  old  nut-tree  betrays 
Their  faith  by  the  swift  falling  of  its  leaves. 
The  year's  young  fledglings  cannot  understand 
Dead  Spring  above  which  solemn  Autunm  grieves. 


[131] 


Even  thus  the  soul,  wrung  by  so  many  woes, 
Ere  on  diviner  seas  it  find  its  track 
And  reaches  Heaven  of  the  Eternal  Rose, 
Tries,  falters  and,  before  it  flees,  comes  back. 


[132] 


CHARLES  GUERIN  ><^ 


XLII  ^-     ^ 


BRIGHT    HAIR 


Amber,  ripe  rye,  or  honey  full  of  light, 
From  combs  like  Fingal's  grotto  glittering  fair, 
Are  dull  beside  my  lovely  friend's  delight 
And  pride  of  radiant  hair. 

When  she  sleeps  near  me,  happily  wearied, 
Beside  her  sleep  in  vigil  I  behold 
Her  hair  under  her  pallid  body  spread, 
Cradling  its  white  in  gold. 

When  with  her  folded  arm  she  combs  and  makes 
Patiently  smooth  the  bright  skein's  tangled  mesh, 
She  throws  her  head  back  lightly  and  she  shakes 
Gleams  on  her  glimmering  flesh. 

Her  bosom  shivers  under  its  caress. 
Her  slim  form  stands  before  the  glass  and  feels 
The  rippling  softness  of  its  longest  tress 
Against  her  rosy  heels. 

[133] 


^  >«ENRY  BATAILLE 
XLIII 

THE    WET    MONTH 

Here  in  the  laundry,  through  the  blurred  window- 
pane 
I  have  seen  the  night  of  Autumn  falling  grey  . . . 
A  wanderer  passes  the  ditches  full  of  rain  .  .  . 
Traveller,  traveller  from  of  old  who  goest  away 
Now  when  the  shepherds  from  the  hills  descend. 
Haste  thee!     The  fires  are  quenched  upon  that 

way. 
And  the  doors  closed  in  the  land  which  is  thine 

end  ... 
The  road  is  empty  and  the  rustle  of  grass 
Comes  from  so  far  it  frightens  us  .  .  .  Haste  thee; 
The  lights  are  out  on  the  old  carts  that  pass  .  .  . 
'Tis  Autumn  sitting  in  coldness  dreamily 
On  the  straw  chair  in  the  kitchen  hid  away  .  .  . 
Autumn  that  in  the  dead  vines  chants  his  lay  .  .  . 
This  is  the  moment  when  unburied  men. 
White  bodies  washed  between  the  waves  in  sleep, 
Feel  the  first  chill  of  shuddering  again 
And  float  for  shelter  into  vases  deep. 


PAUL  FORT 
XLIV 

THE    DEAD    GIRL 

This  girl  is  dead,  is  dead  in  love's  old  way. 
They  put  her  in  the  earth  at  break  of  day. 
They  laid  her  lonely  in  her  fine  array. 
They  left  her  lonely  where  her  lone  grave  lay. 
They  came  back  gaily,  gaily  with  the  day. 
They  sang  so  gaily,  gaily :     "None  may  stay. 
The  girl  is  dead,  is  dead  in  love's  old  way." 
They  went  afield,  afield  as  every  day  .  .  . 


[135] 


XLV 

IMAGES    OF    OUR    DREAMS 

The  wooded  hill  slopes  down  even  unto  the 
stream;  its  mirrored  image  in  the  tranquil  water 
lies;  rocked  in  the  darker  half  the  deep  green 
branches  seem,  and  in  the  azure  half  the  spaces  of 
the  skies. 

Here  like  a  skiey  pearl  a  slender  shallop  glides, 
a  raft  of  branches  rides  not  very  far  away.  .  .  . 
Under  my  very  eyes  the  mist  that  blinds  me  hides 
and  mingles  raft  and  sail  into  the  whelming  wave. 

Images  of  our  dreams  gone  down  into  the 
deeps,  O  aimless  raft  and  sail  with  watery  ports 
ahead,  blue  dream  and  dark  which  down  the  cruel 
river  sweeps,  lost  in  the  wandering  wave  and 
mingled  there  and  dead. 

The  wooded  hill  slopes  down  even  unto  the 
stream.  A  field  of  butter-cups  shakes  on  the 
other  shore.  In  the  sky  overcast  the  pallid  flashes 
gleam.  ...  Ah  for  our  dreams  that  rise  and 
perish  evermore ! 

[136] 


XLVI 


IDYLL 


1. 


Each  time  that  Eve  and  Adam  meet,  he  builds 
of  dreams  a  Paradise.  This  time  that  landscape 
strange  and  sweet  was  built  by  her  to  please  his 
eyes. 

So  for  her  Adam  of  thirteen  an  Eve  of  twelve 
bright  Springs  did  mould  a  world  enchanted 
and  serene — and  during  this  time  I  was  told 

that  motherless  her  years  had  been,  that  she 
loved  tulips  red  and  ripe,  that  in  her  "cottage  she 
was  queen,"  and  that  her  father  smoked  a  pipe. 


2. 

But  on  a  hidden  forest  ground  the  ancient  Mys- 
tery we  found,  and  God  the  Ever-seeing  knew  the 
temple  veil  was  rent  in  two. 
[137] 


We  breathed  the  fragrance  of  the  land,  and  to 
our  fingers  clung  the  hint  of  perfume  which  the 
leaves  of  mint  in  gathering  leave  on  the  hand. 

"The  perfume  of  our  soul's  desire.  How 
heady !  .  .  .  Here's  the  storm  at  last  I"  She  said 
so  sweet  and  wild.  Then  passed  through  the  tree 
tops  the  forks  of  fire. 


The  thunder's  peal  I  Against  my  side  the  ter- 
ror made  her  cling  and  hide.  And  on  our  knees 
behold  us  two  .  .  .  saying  together:  "I  love 
you  .  .  ." 

Her  tenderness  comes  back  and  all  her  dear 
caresses  I  recall,  and  her  blue,  ardent  eyes  adream, 
her  throat  and  shoulder  white  as  cream. 

Fresh  air  of  Spring,  why  have  you  made  a  soul 
flit  back  into  the  shade  of  these  far  memories  of 
youth?  And  of  these  scenes  that  fade  .  .  .  and 
fade.  ... 

[138] 


¥ 


XLVII 

BELL    OF    DAWN 

Faint  music  of  a  bell  which  dawn  brings  to 
my  ear,  made  my  heart  young  again  here  at  the 
break  of  day. 

Faint  bell-like  music  which  through  dewy  dawn 
I  hear  ringing  so  far,  so  near,  changed  all  I  hope 
and  fear. 

What,  shall  I  after  this  survive  my  dear-bought 
bliss,  music  by  which  my  soul's  far  youth  recovered 
is? 

Chiming  so  far  away,  so  lonely  and  withdrawn, 
O  little  singing  air  in  the  fresh  heart  of  dawn, 

you  flee,  return  and  ring:  seeking  like  love  to 
stray,  you  tremble  in  my  heart  here  at  the  break 
of  day. 

Ah,  can  life  ever  be  of  such  serenity,  so  peace- 
ful, mild  and  fair  as  is  this  little  air? 
[139] 


So  simple  yet  so  sweet  as,  over  meadows  borne, 
this  little  tune  that  thrills  all  the  fresh  heart  of 
mom? 


[140] 


XLVIII 


HORIZONS 


On  the  way  to  Paris,  but  toward  Nemours  the 
white,  a  bullfinch  in  the  branches  sang  through 
the  morning-light. 

On  the  way  to  Orleans,  to  Nemours  flying  fleet, 
a  swallow  in  the  heart  of  day  sang  above  the 
wheat. 

On  the  way  to  Flanders,  in  twilight's  gold  and 
grey,  far  from  Nemours  the  magpie  its  treasure 
hid  away. 

Eastward  on  to  Germany  and  Russia  with 
harsh  cry,  far  away  from  this  land  the  crows  of 
evening  fly. 

But  in  my  lovely  garden,  in  Nemours'  shel- 
tered vale,  all  through  the  starry  hours  of  night 
chanted  the  nightingale. 

[141] 


PIERRE  LOUYS 
XLIX 

PEGASUS 

His  pure  feet  striking  sparks  of  flint  that  rise, 
The  mythic  beast  whose  limbs  inviolate  are 
Held  by  no  god  or  man  in  rein  or  bar, 
Unto  the  vast  mysteriously  flies. 

The  lessening  horse's  mane  in  aureole  wise 
Becomes,  far  streaming,  an  immortal  star, 
Lustrous  in  the  nocturnal  gold  like  far 
Orion  glittering  in  the  frosty  skies. 

And  as  in  days  when  fair  souls  and  aloof 
Drank  from  the  springs  struck  by  his  sacred  hoof 
Their  dream  of  flight  into  sidereal  lands. 

Poets  who  for  the  reverence  lost  them  weep 
Still  see  in  fancy  'neath  their  feeble  hands 
The  white  beast  in  forbidden  heavens  leap. 

[142] 


CAMILLE  MAUCLAIR 


PRESENCES 


I  HAVE  seen  gentle  ladies  fade 
Into  the  dusk  on  soundless  feet, 
And  I  have  seen  their  image  made 
One  with  the  evening,  deep  and  sweet. 

Long  dead  the  voices  of  all  these — 
Beside  some  gate  shadowy  and  tall, 
Or  threshold  dim  their  memories 
Dream  with  the  driven  leaves  of  fall. 

Even  as  a  poor  man  makes  his  bed 
In  golden  Autumn  foliage  deep, 
Lie  down,  my  soul  uncomforted, 
Amid  their  memories  and  sleep. 

And  to  thy  very  bosom  strain 
These  shadows  from  the  twilight  lands. 
That  their  faint  fragrance  may  remain 
Within  thy  heart  and  on  thy  hands. 
[143] 


LI 


THE    MINUTE 


"O  MY  daughter,  open  the  gate! 
Someone  knocks  loud  and  late!" 
"I  cannot  go  and  open  there, 
For  at  the  mirror  I  smoothe  my  hair." 

"Daughter,  open  the  gate,  I  say, 
A  man  faints  upon  the  way !" 
"I  cannot  go  and  look  for  him  yet, 
Ribands  upon  my  waist  I  set." 

"Open,  O  daughter  sweet! 
I  am  old,  I  have  dragging  feet.  .  .  ." 
"I  cannot  go  and  watch  for  him  now, 
Pm  clasping  jewels  on  my  brow." 

"Perchance  the  traveller  is  dead 
Out  in  the  cold  and  wind  and  dread !" 
"If  he  had  been  fair  I  should  have  guessed: 
No  thrill  has  shaken  my  breast." 

[144] 


HENRI  BARBUSSE 
LII 

THE    LETTER 

The  clock  ticks  the  slow  minutes  out, 
And  the  lamp  listens  as  I  write. 
Soon  I  shall  close  mine  eyes,  no  doubt, 
And  sleep  and  dream  of  us  to-night. 

The  soft  glow  o'er  my  forehead  slips, 
Thy  voice  sounds  in  my  fevered  ear  . 
Thy  smiling  name  is  on  my  lips. 
And  on  my  hand  thy  fingers  dear. 

I  feel  the  charm  of  yesterday; 
Thy  poor  heart  sobs  within  me  now; 
And,  in  this  dreaming,  who  shall  say 
Whether  'tis  I  who  write,  or  thou.  .  . 


[145] 


FERNAND  GREGH 
LIII 

DOUBT 

Upon  the  topmost  branches  dies 
A  last  ray  of  the  setting  sun; 
A  glimmer  of  strange  gilding  lies 
Upon  the  leaves'  vermilion. 

From  the  pale  sky  the  colours  fade, 
'Tis  grey  even  as  grey  waters  are; 
There  glide  like  sudden  shafts  of  shade 
The  living  wings  of  birds  afar. 

From  all  things  comes  a  charm  so  deep, 
So  sweet  and  glad,  so  void  of  strife; 
Calm  as  the  peacefulness  of  sleep 
Spreads  the  divinely  cosmic  life. 

The  sounds  of  the  far  city  roll 
On  fitful  winds  to  my  retreat.  .  .  . 
Why  falls  there  sudden  on  my  soul 
A  feeling  beyond  speaking  sweet? 
[146] 


Dear  God,  how  all  the  sense  of  doom 
Vanishes  in  the  face  of  things! 
How  one  is  like  poor  men  to  whom 
Some  chance  a  day  of  feasting  brings ! 

How  one  adores  in  childlike  mood, 
And  finds  Thee  where  the  shadows  fall, 
Here  in  life's  holy  amplitude, 
Thee  who,  perhaps,  art  not  at  all. 


[147] 


PAUL  SOUCHON 
LIV 

ELEGY    AT    NOON 

When  in  the  street  at  noon  the  human  tide 
Sweeps  from  each  house  and  hurries  me  aside, 
When  bars  and  restaurants  with  hubbub  teem 
And    from   hot   plates    the   vapors   heavenward 

steam, 
And  in  the  sultry  and  tumultuous  street 
Paris  sits  down  at  table  and  to  cat — 
I  think  how  far  in  some  gold  landscape  deep 
The  quiet  reaper  seeks  the  shade  for  sleep, 
Drives  in  his  dream  the  buzzing  fly  away 
That  o'er  his  open  lips  has  come  to  stray, 
And  sees  on  waking,  but  with  eyes  closed  tight, 
Through  all  his  blood  roll  the  resplendent  light. 


[148] 


HENRY  SPIESS 
LV 


HANDS 


Hands  that  in  my  dream  I  see 
Beckoning  me  like  a  star 
The  brief  rose  have  promised  me 
And  the  lily  far. 

Hands  that  I  have  longed  to  hold 
For  their  gestures  magical, 
Rings  have  worn  of  ancient  gold 
On  their  fingers  small. 

Hands  which  so  I  need  to  bless 
Throbbing  mouth  and  fevered  eyes, 
Sweeter  than  soft  lips  caress 
And  in  gentler  wise. 

When  I  thought  I  watched  them  pass 
Ever  life  the  doubt  has  seen, 
And  they  have,  perhaps,  alas, 
Never  truly  been. 

[149] 


Yet  because  I  dreamed  of  them 
Long  ago  and  late, 
Faithful  I  have  been  to  them 
And  I  wait  and  wait.  .  .  . 


C150] 


MAURICE  MAGRE 
LVI 

THE    COQUETRY    OF    MEN 

We  too,  no  less,  have  all  our  little  arts, 
Our  pencils,  carmines,  khols  and  brushes  too, 
And  in  the  glass  our  precious  selves  we  view. 
And  with  gay  subtlety  arrange  our  hearts. 
The  women  their  complexion  scrutinise, 
A  mark,  a  blemish,  bluish  veins  that  rise. 
And  skilfully  the  smallest  wrinkle  hide. 
Thus  we  contemplate  strictly,  on  our  side, 
Each  form  of  life  that  may  affect  the  mind. 
We  ponder  tears  and  laughter  both  designed 
For  the  minute  and  the  woman  we  would  please. 
We  show  ourselves  bright,  sombre  or  at  ease; 
We  are  tricked  out  so  neatly,  moulded  so 
With  conscious  dreams  or  some  false  passion's 

glow. 
With  such  feigned  fervor  and  apparent  heat. 
Abandon  worn  like  rouge  to  gull  the  street, 
That  in  this  phantom  of  disdain  or  woe 
No  man  the  true  and  hidden  heart  may  know. 

[151] 


Ah,   we  're   alike  I     Each  wears  the  mask  each 

made! 
With  outstretched  arms  we  wander  in  the  shade 
Which  we  ourselves  have  woven  with  our  might. 
She  makes  the  eye  more  dark,  the  throat  more 

white, 
I  cast  my  thought  in  forms  unknown  before. 
Each  paints  with  vigor  or  the  heart  or  face. 
One  with  fair  words,  one  with  a  pencil's  grace — 
Both  hide  theil.  viewless  hearts  forevermore. 


[152] 


LEO  LARGUIER 
LVII 

WHEN    I    AM    OLD    .    .    . 

When  I  am  old  and  poet  of  renown, 

And  walk  with  tottering  steps  and  brow  bent 

down, 
And  think  of  nothing  but  my  verses  spread 
Like  swarms  of  singing  bees  about  my  head — 
Where  will  you  be,  O  my  dear  love  of  old? 
There  in  the  dusk  of  life  and  fame,  behold, 
I  shall  be  sad,  watching  the  late  hours  fly. 
And  follow  with  an  old  man's  desolate  eye 
Some  lass  of  twenty  trip  on  footsteps  light. 
Wearing  a  pastoral  hat  with  flowers  of  white. 
Just  like  the  hat  you  wore  in  other  days, 
ril  see  the  inn  once  more,  the  wood,  the  ways, 
And  all  our  Autumn  journey  take  again! 
rU  people  with  regret  and  longing  vain 
Our  village  of  dead  days  I     O  memory. 
So  rich  in  deathless  things,  yet  doomed  to  die 
Although  the  roses  bloom  forevermore! 
Dear  love,  dear  love,  beside  my  closed  door 


Alone  I'll  sit  and  watch  in  gathering  damp 
Life's  barren  evening  flicker  like  a  lamp. 
Upon  the  garden  bench  where  Autumn  sees 
The  first  rain  spray,  the  first  leaf  in  the  breeze 
Fall  like  a  stricken  bird  upon  the  way, 
I  shall  re-live  that  Autumn  day  by  day — 
All !  .  .  .  Yet  to  see  in  very  truth  what's  gone : 
The  bracelet  on  your  round  arm  in  the  dawn 
When  you  pushed  back  the  small  green  shutters 

where 
The  dewy  vines  shone  in  the  limpid  air. 
To  see  again  your  smile,  your  forehead's  white, 
The  brown  tress  hiding  it  in  full  moon-light — 
Old  and  renowned,  in  my  dull  evenfall, 
I  would  give  up  my  portion  in  that  fame 
Which  history  grants  to  hearts  made  musical, 
And  this  poor  laurel  of  a  glorious  name. 


[154] 


CHARLES  VILDRAC 
LVIII 

IF    ONE    WERE    TO    KEEP    .    .    . 

If  one  were  to  keep  for  many  years  and  days, 
If  one  were  to  keep  the  lithe  and  fragrant  grace 
Of  all  the  hair  of  women  who  are  dead, 
All  the  blond  hair  and  all  the  hair  of  white, 
Tresses  of  gold  and  coils  the  hue  of  night, 
And  hair  of  bronze  like  Autumn's  foliage  dead, 
If  one  kept  these  for  many  years  and  days, 
And  wove  long  veils  of  them  that  were  to  be 
Stretched  out  across  the  sea. 
So  many  would  be  stretched  over  the  sea. 
So  many  coils  of  red,  so  many  tresses  bright. 
So  many  silken  strands  in  the  sunlight 
Would  glitter  or  in  billowing  breezes  play. 
That  the  great  birds  who  fly  over  the  sea 
Would  often  feel,  the  shadowy  birds  of  grey, 
On  wing  and  plumage  there. 
The  kisses  ever  breathing  from  this  hair. 
The  many  kisses  given  to  this  hair, 
And  then  in  the  great  winds  blown  far  away. 

[155] 


If  one  were  to  keep  for  many  years  and  days, 

If  one  were  to  keep  the  lithe  and  fragrant  grace 

Of  all  the  hair  of  women  who  are  dead, 

All  the  blond  hair  and  all  the  hair  of  white, 

Tresses  of  gold  and  coils  the  hue  of  night, 

And  hair  of  bronze  like  Autumn's  foliage  dead, 

If  one  kept  these  for  many  years  and  days, 

And  twisted  ropes  of  dark  and  gold  and  red. 

And  tethered  then 

To  the  great  links  all  earth's  imprisoned  men, 

And  bade  the  prisoners  go  forth  again 

Far  as  the  lithe  rope  led — 

The  ropes  would  stretch  so  far  on  hill  and  plain 

From  all  dark  thresholds  out  through  sun  and 

rain. 
That  if  all  prisoners  in  the  world  went  forth, 
Each,  wandering  South  or  North, 
Would  reach  his  home  again. 

If  Clotho  on  her  busy  distaff  spun 
Instead  of  my  brief  life's  soon  ended  thread 
The  long  hair  and  the  heavy  of  women  dead, 
Hair  dark  as  rust,  hair  radiant  as  the  sun, 
Hair  as  the  raven's  wing, 

[156] 


Or  argent  as  the  birches  are  in  Spring, 
If  Clotho  on  her  busy  distaff  spun 
All  tresses  of  all  women  who  are  dead, 
I  should  be  lone,  so  weary  and  so  old, 
In  a  high  tower  with  no  thing  to  behold 
And  no  hope  any  coming  thing  to  see, 
And  so  bowed  down  with  heavy  memory 
Of  all  who  had  to  die. 

That   I   would   call   for   Death — with   a   great 
cryl  .  .  . 


[157] 


GEORGES  DUHAMEL 
LIX 

ANNUNCIATION 

From  the  tall  mountain's  brow 

A  broken  mass  of  rock 

Rolls  down  the  wrinkles  of  the  deep  ravine 

As  though  it  were  a  heavy  tear  of  granite. 

If  it  seems  to  stop  for  a  space 

It  is  but  to  roll  on  with  a  fiercer  leap; 

A  stag  set  free  will  not  more  swiftly  reach  its  cave. 

It  bounds  forth  mightily 

And  plucks  out  at  their  very  roots 

The  pines  and  juniper  trees. 

Also  the  wood-cutters  toiling  upon  the  slope 
Feel  a  disquietude  upon  their  backs; 
And  terror  freezes  their  entrails, 
While  this  scourge  approaches 
Which  no  man  has  yet  seen. 

But  I  among  the  heather  sunk  in  deepest  peace 
Have  a  heart  as  calm  as  is  a  hooded  falcon's, 

[158] 


My  skin  is  clear  with  blood  that  nothing  can 
affright : 

For  I  know  the  mountain  and  the  road  of  ava- 
lanches, 

And  that  the  stone  may  not  fall  where  I  am. 

But  I  can  point  out  far  below 

The  trees  that  it  will  fell 

And  the  man  that  it  will  crush. 


[159] 


EMILE  DESPAX 
LX 

ULTIMA 

Musing  I  seem  upon  the  glistening  space 
Among  the  trees  to  see 
A  white  bust  glimmer  on  a  marble  base. 
My  brother  says:     'Tis  he. 

Brother,  though  thou  love  farthest  island  ways, 
Strange  sky  and  ultimate  main, 
I  books  and  perfect  verse  and  quiet  days, 
We  shall  be  one  through  pain. 


[160] 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


•4  ^. 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

HuRET,  Jules  :  enquete  sur  l'evolution  litteraire. 
1891. 

Moore,  George:     impressions  and  opinions.     1891. 

GouRMONT,  Remy  de  :     l'idealisme.     1893. 

Weigand,  W.  :  essays  zur  psychologie  der  deca- 
dence.    1893. 

MocKEL,  Albert:    propos  de  litterature.     1894. 

Wyzewa,  Teodore  de:     nos  maitres.     1895. 

Lazare,  Bernard:     figures   contemporaines.     1895. 

DouMic,  Rene:     les  jeunes.     1896. 

GouRMONT,  Remy  de:    le  livre  des  masques.     1896. 

Vigie-Lecocq,  E.  :     la  poesie  contemporaine.     1897. 

Bahr,  Hermann  :     skizzen  und  essays.     1897. 

Kahn,   Gustave:     preface   aux   premieres   poemes. 

1897. 

GouRMONT,  Remy  de:  le  second  livre  des  masques. 
1898. 

Pelissier,  Georges  :  etudes  de  litterature  contem- 
poraine.    1898. 

Gourmont,  Remy  de:     l'esthetique  de  la  langue 

FRANgAISE.       1899. 

Crawford,  Virginia  :  studies  in  French  literature. 
1&99. 

[163] 


^ 


SouzA,  Robert  de  :    la  poesie  populaire  et  le  lyrisme 

sentimental.     1 899. 
Symons,  Arthur:    the  symbolist  movement  in  lit- 

"    erature.    T899. 
Bordeaux,   Henry:    les   ecrivains    et   les   mgeurs. 

1900. 
Thompson,  Vance:    french  portraits.     1900. 

GOURMONT,  KeMY  DE :  LA  CULTURE  DES  IDEES. 
1900. 

Mauclair,  Camille:  l'art  en  silence.  1900. 
Gregh,  Fernand:  la  fenetre  ouverte.  1901. 
Brandes,  Georg:     samlede  skrifter.     fransk  lyrik. 

VOL.  VII.       1901. 

Hauser,  Otto:  die  belgische  lyrik  von  1880-1900. 
1902. 

Charles,  J.  Ernest:  la  litterature  d'aujourd'hui. 
1902. 

Kahn,  Gustave:     symbolistes  et  decadents.     1902. 

GossE,  Edmund:     french  profiles.     1902. 

Beaunier,  Andre:     la  poesie  nouvelle.     1902. 

Mendes,  Catulle  :  rapport  sur  le  mouvement  poet- 
ique  frangais  de  1867  a  i9oo.     i902. 

DouMic,  Rene:    hommes  et  idees.     1903. 

Rette,  Adolph  :  le  symbolisme.  anecdotes  et  sou- 
venirs.    1903. 

Daxhelet,  Arthur  :  une  crise  litteraire  :  symbol- 
isme ET  symbolistes.      I904. 

Bosch,  Firmin  van  den  :  impressions  de  litterature 
contemporaine.     i905. 

[164] 


Pelissier,   Georges:     etudes  de   litterature   et  de 

moral  contemporaine.     i905. 
ZiLLiAcus,  Emil:     den  nyaren  franska  poesin  och 

ANTIKEN.       1905. 
GOURMONT,   ReMY   DE :      PROMENADES    LITTERAIRES.       (4 
VOLS.)       1905  ff. 

Le  Cardonel,  Georges  et  Vellay,  Charles:     la  lit- 
terature CONTEMPORAINE.      I905. 

Casella,  Georges  et  Gaubert,  Ernest:     la  nouvelle 

LITTERATURE.       1895-I905.       I906. 

RiMESTAD,  Christian:     fransk  poesi  i  det  nittende 

aar-hundrede.     i906. 
Blum,    Leon:     en     lisant.     reflexions    critiques. 

1906. 
Hamel,  a.  G.  van:     het  letterkundig  leven  van 

frangrijk.     1907. 
Oppeln-Bronikowski,    F.    von:    das    junge    frank- 

REICH.       1908. 

Grautoff,  Otto  und  Erna  :    die  lyrische  bewegung 

im  gegenwartigen  frankreich.     i9ii. 
ViSAN,  Tancrede  de:     l'attitude  du   lyrisme  con- 

TEMPORAIN.       1911. 

Key,  Ellen :     seelen  und  werke.     19 ii. 
Mercereau,  Alexandre  :     la  litterature  et  les  idees 

nouvelles.     1912. 
Barre,  Andre:     le  symbolisme.     1912. 
Heumann,     Albert:       le     mouvement     litteraire 

BELGE  d'eXPRESSION  FRANQAISE  DEPUIS   iSSo.       I913. 

Lowell,  Amy:     six  French  poets.     1915. 

[165] 


BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 
SKETCHES  OF  THE  THIRTY  POETS 


THE  THIRTY  POETS 

STEPHANE  MALLARME  (1842-1898) 

was  born  at  Paris  of  a  family  of  public  servants  in  whom 
a  taste  for  letters  had  been  traditional  for  several  genera- 
tions. He  completed  his  preliminary  studies  at  various 
lycees  and,  having  already  begun  the  study  of  English 
in  order  to  read  Poe,  passed  some  time  in  England  during 
his  twentieth  year.  The  result  was  a  modest  independ- 
ence gained  by  the  teaching  of  English  at  colleges  and 
lycees  first  in  the  South  of  France,  then  in  Paris  from 
1862-1892,  Already  known  to  men  of  letters  by  his 
verses  and  translations  of  Poe,  he  was  revealed  to  the 
younger  generation  by  the  skilful  quotations  and  praise  of 
J.  K.  Huysmans  in  his  novel  A  Rebours  in  1884.  Now 
began  the  period  of  Mallarme's  true  fame  and  wide  influ- 
ence. Unfortunately  he  survived  his  retirement  from 
active  teaching  for  only  six  years.  But  it  is  doubtful 
whether  fuller  bodied  works  would  have  come  from  his 
mystical  fastidiousness.  His  admirable  work  both  as  a 
poet  and  an  inspirer  of  poetry  was  done. 

[169] 


Criticism  and  Biography: 

Mauclair,  Camille:     Stephane  Mallarme.     (n.  d.) 
Meckel,  Albert:     Stephane  Mallarme:  Un  Heros. 

1899. 
Wyzewa,  Teodore  de :     Notes  sur  Mallarme.     1886. 

The  Poetical  Works  : 

Poesies  Completes.     1887.     Vers  et  Prose,  florilege. 
1893.     Poesies  Completes.     1899. 

PAUL  VERLAINE  (1844-1896) 

was  born  at  Metz,  the  son  of  a  Captain  in  the  French 
army.  The  poet's  earliest  years  were  passed  in  various 
garrison  towns.  In  1851  Captain  Verlaine  left  the  serv- 
ice and  settled  in  Paris.  After  some  preparation  Paul  en- 
tered the  old  Lycee  Bonaparte^  was  made  bachelier  es 
lettres  in  1862,  obtained  employment  first,  curiously 
enough,  with  an  insurance  company,  then  in  several  pub- 
lic offices.  But  soon,  especially  after  the  death  of  his 
father,  he  neglected  his  duties,  associated  with  men  of  let- 
ters, and  published  his  first  two  volumes  which  were  prac- 
tically unnoticed.  In  1870  he  married,  became  involved 
in  the  Commune^  left  Paris,  already  at  odds  with  his  wife 
and  given  to  drinking,  and  formed  the  fatal  friendship 
with  Arthur  Rimbaud.  The  two  fled  in  July,  1872, 
passed  together  many  months  of  strange  wandering  in 
England  and  Belgium  where,  in  a  fit  of  jealousy,  Ver- 
laine shot  and  wounded  Rimbaud.  The  court  at  Brus- 
sels condemned  the  poet  to  two  years  imprisonment  dur- 

[170] 


ing  which  time  his  conversion  to  Catholicism  took  place. 
After  his  liberation  he  lived  for  a  year  in  England,  re- 
turned to  France,  taught  for  a  while,  engaged  in  a  num- 
ber of  rash  and  unsuccessful  adventures  in  farming  and, 
having  lost  his  excellent  mother  in  1886,  drifted  into  that 
life  of  passage  from  hospital  to  slum  and  slum  to  hospital 
which  has  become  famous  as  an  instance  of  the  union  of 
extreme  misery  and  the  highest  artistic  glory.  "A  bar- 
barian, a  savage,  a  child,"  as  Jules  Lemaitre  wrote,  "but 
one  who  heard  voices  heard  by  none  before." 

Criticism  and  Biography: 

Coucke,  J. :     Paul  Verlaine.     1896. 

Dullaert,  M. :     Verlaine.     1896. 

France,    Anatole:     La    Vie    litteraire.     (36    serie) 
1891. 

Lemaitre,    Jules:     Les    contemporains.     (4e    serie) 
1889. 

Lepelletier,  Edmond:     Paul  Verlaine,  sa  Vie,  son 
Oeuvre.     1907. 

Morice,     Charles:     Paul    Verlaine,    L'Homme    et 
UOeuvre.     1888. 

Watzoldt,  S. :     Paul  Verlaine :  Ein  Dichter  der  De- 
cadence.    1892. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Poemes  saturniens.  1866.  Fetes  galantes.  1869. 
La  Bonne  Chanson.  1870.  Romances  sans  Paroles. 
1874.  Sagesse.  1881.  Jadis  et  Naguere.  1884. 
Amour.     1888.     Parallelement.     1889.     Dedicaces. 

[171] 


1889.  Femmes.  1890.  Bonheur.  1891.  Choix  de 
Poesies.  1891.  Chansons  pour  Elle.  1891.  Li- 
turgies intimes.  1892.  Elegies.  1893.  Odes  en 
son  honneur.  1893.  Dans  les  limbes.  1894. 
fipigrammes.  1894.  Chair.  1896.  Invectives. 
1896.  Oeuvres  Completes.  5  Vols.  1899-1900. 
Oeuvres  posthumes.     1903. 

ARTHUR  RIMBAUD  (1854-1891) 

was  born  at  Charleville  in  the  Ardennes.  Though  also 
the  son  of  an  army  officer  he  passed  his  childhood  in  a 
sheltered  home.  Fresh  from  school  the  precocious  lad  ran 
away,  was  brought  back,  escaped  a  second  and  a  third 
time,  formed  the  connection  with  Verlaine  and,  having 
recovered  from  his  wounds,  travelled  in  England,  Ger- 
many, Italy,  volunteered  with  the  Carlist  army  in  Spain, 
with  the  colonial  troups  of  Holland,  deserted  and  wan- 
dered through  Java.  He  returned  to  Europe,  travelled 
with  a  circus  but  finally,  helped  by  his  family,  departed 
definitely  for  the  Orient,  oblivious  of  the  life  of  letters, 
living  his  literature,  merchant  in  strange  lands,  purveyor 
of  weapons  to  the  Negus  of  Abyssinia,  dying  of  a  tumor 
of  the  knee  in  Marseilles  whither  he  had  gone  to  visit  his 
family. 

Criticism  and  Biography: 

Ammer,    K.    L.    (Eingeleitet    von    Stefan    Zweig) : 
Arthur  Rimbaud.     Leben  und  Dichtung.     1907. 

[172] 


Berrichon,  Paterne:     La  Vie  de  Jean-Arthur  Rim- 
baud.    1897. 
Delahaye,  Ernest:     Rimbaud.     1906. 
Rimbaud,  Jean-Arthur:     Lettres  de.     1899. 
Verlaine,  Paul:     Les  Poetes  Maudits.     1884. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Poesies  completes.     1895.     Oeuvres  de  Jean-Arthur 
Rimbaud.     1898. 

GEORGES  RODENBACH  (1855-1898) 

was  born  at  Tournai  in  Belgium  of  a  cultivated  family 
of  purely  Flemish  origin.  Early,  however,  his  family 
moved  to  Ghent  where  he  attended  the  college  of  Sainte- 
Barbe  and  the  university,  taking,  in  due  time,  his  doctor- 
ate in  law.  In  1876  he  went  to  Paris,  engaged  in  the 
life  of  letters,  established  himself  at  the  Brussels  bar  in 
1885  but  returned  definitely  to  Paris  two  years  later. 
"He  will  take  his  rank,"  wrote  Verhaeren,  "amongst  those 
whose  sadness,  gentleness,  subtle  sentiment  and  talent  fed 
upon  memories,  tenderness  and  silence  weave  a  crown  of 
pale  violets  about  the  brow  of  Flanders." 

Criticism  and  Biography: 

Casier,  J.:     L'Oeuvre  poetique  de  Georges  Rodcix- 

bach.     1888. 
Daxhelet,  A.:     Georges  Rodenbach.     1899. 
Guerin,  Charles:     Georges  Rodenbach.     1894. 

[173] 


The  Poetical  Works: 

Le  Foyer  et  les  Champs.  1877.  Les  Tristesses. 
1879.  Ode  a  la  Belgique.  1880.  La  Mer  ele- 
gante. 1881.  L'Hiver  mondain.  1884.  La  Jeun- 
esse  blanche.  1886.  Du  Silence.  1888.  Le 
Regne  du  Silence.  1891.  Les  Vies  encloses.  1896. 
Le  Miroir  du  ciel  natal.     1898. 

EMILE  VERHAEREN  (1855-1915) 

was  born  at  Saint-Amand  near  Antwerp  of  a  family  of 
solid  Flemish  bourgeois,  probably  of  Dutch  descent. 
From  the  village  school  at  Saint-Amand  he  proceeded  first 
to  Brussels,  then  to  the  College  of  Sainte-Barbe  in  Ghent 
where  Rodenbach  had  preceded  and  Maeterlinck  was  to 
follow  him.  His  family  destined  him  to  succeed  his 
uncle  in  the  latter's  oil  refinery.  He  worked  a  year  in 
its  ofBce,  then  went  to  the  University  of  Louvain,  com- 
pleting his  studies  in  the  law,  forming  lettered  friend- 
ships, joining  in  the  founding  of  La  Jeune  Belgique,  He 
practised  his  profession  tentatively  for  a  space,  but  from 
1883  on  devoted  himself  wholly  to  literature.  His  career 
now  becomes  the  story  of  those  inner  changes  and  ad- 
ventures analysed  in  the  text  and  of  the  growth  of  his 
fame  first  in  Belgium  and  France,  later  in  Germany, 
finally  in  England  and  America.  He  died  from  injuries 
sustained  in  an  accident. 

Criticism  and  Biography: 

Bazalgette,  Leon:     £mile  Verhaeren.     1907. 

[174] 


Boer,  Julius  de:     fimile  Verhaeren.     1908. 
Buisseret,    Georges :     L'£volution    Ideologique    de 

£mile  Verhaeren.      1910. 
Gauchez,  M. ;     fimile  Verhaeren.     1908. 
Guilbeaux,  Henri:     £mile  Verhaeren.     1908. 
Schellenberg,  E.  A.:     £mile  Verhaeren.     1911. 
Schlaf,  Johannes :     £mile  Verhaeren.     1905. 
Zweig,    Stefan:     £mile    Verhaeren.     German    and 

French  editions:  1910:  English,   1914. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Les  Flammandes.  1883.  Les  Moines.  1886.  Les 
Soirs.  1887.  Les  Debacles.  1888.  Les  Flam- 
beaux noirs.  1890.  Au  bord  de  la  Route.  1891. 
Les  Apparus  dans  mes  Chemins.  1891.  Les  Cam- 
pagnes  hallucinees.  1893.  Almanach.  1895.  Les 
Villages  illusoires.  1895.  Les  Villes  tentaculaires. 
1895.  Les  Heures  Claires.  1896.  Les  Visages 
de  la  Vie.  1899.  Petites  Legendes.  1900.  Les 
Forces  tumultueuses.  1902.  Toute  la  Flandre. 
Les  Tendresses  premieres.  1904.  Les  Heures 
d'Apres-midi.  1905.  La  Multiple  Splendeur.  1906. 
Toute  la  Flandre.  La  Guirlande  des  dunes.  1907. 
Toute  la  Flandre.  Les  Heros.  1908.  Toute  la 
Flandre.  Les  Villes  a  Pignons.  1909.  Les 
Rythmes  souverains.  1910.  Les  Heures  du  Soir. 
1911.  Toute  la  Flandre.  Les  Plaines.  1912, 
Les  Bles  mouvants.     1912, 


[175] 


JEAN  MOREAS  (1856-1910) 

was  born  at  Athens,  a  descendant  of  two  Greek  families 
illustrious  in  peace  and  war.  His  real  name,  too  cum- 
bersome for  a  French  man  of  letters,  was  Papadiaman- 
topoulos.  His  education  at  Athens  was  wholly  French 
and,  as  a  very  young  man,  he  took  up  his  residence  in 
Paris.  His  life  was  devoted  wholly  to  literature.  Hav- 
ing visited  various  German  cities,  as  well  as  Italy,  he 
made  his  last  visit  to  his  native  country  in  1897.  From 
then  on  his  preoccupation  with  poetry  was  complete. 

Criticism  and  Biography: 

Gourmont,  Jean  de:     Jean  Moreas.     1905. 
Maurras,  Charles.     Jean  Moreas.     1891. 
France,    Anatole.     La    Vie    litteraire.     (4e    serie.) 
1892. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Les  Syrtes.  1884.  Les  Cantilenes.  1886.  Le 
Pelerin  passione.  1891.  Eriphyle,  poeme  suivi  de 
Quatre  Sylves.  1894.  Les  Stances  (ler  et  lie 
livres).  1899.  Les  Stances.  (Hie,  IVe,  Ve,  et 
yie  livres).     1901. 

JULES  LAFORGUE  (1860-1887) 

was  born  at  Montevideo  where  his  father  was  tutor. 
The  boy  was  placed  early  in  the  lycee  at  Tarbes  where  he 
remained  until  the  family  returned  to  Europe  and  settled 
in  Paris.     Completing  his  education  in   1879  Laforgue 

[176] 


formed  his  momentous  friendship  with  M.  Gustave  Kahn. 
There  followed  years  of  severe  literary  poverty  until  in 
1881,  partly  through  the  influence  of  M.  Paul  Bourget, 
Laforgue  was  appointed  reader  to  the  Empress  Augusta 
at  Berlin.  In  1886  he  left  this  post,  married  a  young 
Englishwoman  whom  he  had  met  in  Berlin,  but  already 
fallen  into  consumption  survived  this  event  only  one  year. 

Criticism  and  Biography: 

Dufour,  Mederic :     L'Esthetique  de  Jules  Laforgue. 

1905. 
Mauclair,   Camille:     Jules   Laforgue,   Essai.   Avec 
une  Introduction  de  Maeterlinck.     1896. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Les  Complain tes.  188^.  LTmitation  de  Notre- 
Dame  la  Lune.  1886.  Le  Concile  feerique. 
1886.  Derniers  Vers.  1890,  Poesies  Completes. 
1894. 

HENRI  DE  REGNIER  (born  1864) 

is  descended  from  a  family  distinguished  even  amid  the 
older  nobility  of  France.  From  his  native  place  Hon- 
fleur,  the  family  moved  to  Paris  in  1874  and  Regnier 
passed  through  the  College  Stanislas  where  he  had 
already  written.  He  studied  law  but  began  publish- 
ing verse  almost  immediately.  He  took  a  vital  part 
in  the  founding  of  the  Symbolist  movement,  sought  out 
Verlaine  and  was  Mallarme's  closest  intimate  among  the 
younger  men.     In  1896  he  married  Mile.  Marie  de  Here- 

[177] 


dia,  second  daughter  of  the  author  of  Les  Trophees  and 
herself  a  poet  of  distinction.  M.  de  Regnier,  almost  as 
celebrated  to-day  in  prose  fiction  as  in  verse,  has  never 
had  to  wait  for  recognition.  It  came  to  him  early:  it 
gave  him  the  opportunity  of  undivided  devotion  to  art. 
He  is  by  common  accord  the  representative  French  poet  of 
his  time. 

Criticism  and  Biography: 

Gourmont,    Jean    de:     Henri    de    Regnier    et    son 

oeuvre.     1908. 
Leautaud,  Paul.     Henri  de  Regnier.     1904. 
Mauclair,  Camille:     Henri  de  Regnier.     1894. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Lendemains.  1885.  Apaisement.  1886.  Sites. 
1887.  Episodes.  1888.  Poemes  anciens  et  ro- 
manesques.  1890.  Tel  qu'en  Songe.  1892.  Are- 
thuse.  1895.  Les  Jeux  rustiques  et  divins.  1897. 
Les  Medailles  d'Argile.  1900.  La  Cite  des  Eaux. 
1902.  La  Sandale  ailee.  1906.  Le  Miroir  des 
Heures.     1911. 

FRANCIS  VIELE-GRIFFIN  (born  1864) 

is  a  native  of  Norfolk,  Virginia.  He  was  taken  to 
France  in  his  boyhood,  received  a  wholly  French  edu- 
cation and  printed  verse  in  his  adopted  tongue  as  early 
as  1885.  He  was  one  of  the  strongest  theoretical  spirits 
in  the  Symbolist  movement,  edited  one  of  its  early  re- 
views, fought  for  it  and  has  remained  true  to  it  ever  since. 

[178] 


A  wide  reading  of  the  criticism  and  poetry  of  his  period 
serves  to  heighten  one's  sense  of  his  wide  influence  and  of 
the  esteem  in  which  he  and  his  work  are  held  by  his  fel- 
low craftsmen  in  France. 

Criticism  and  Biography: 

Henri  de  Regnier :     Francis  Viele-GrifEn.     1894. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Cueille  d'Avril.     1886.    Les  Cygnes.     1887.  Joies. 

1889.     Les     Cygnes.     Nouveaux     Poemes.  1892. 

La  Chcvauchee  d*Yeldis  et  autres  poemes.  1893. 

naAat,  poemes.     1894.     La   Clarte  de  Vie.  1897. 

La  Partenza.     1899.     L' Amour  sacre.     1903.  Plus 

loin.    1906.    La  Lumiere  de  la  Grece.    1912.  Voix 
d'lonie.     1914. 

GUST  AVE  KAHN  (born   1859) 

is  a  native  of  Metz,  of  Jewish  birth.  He  studied  at 
the  6,cole  des  Chartes  and  the  £,cole  des  langues  orieri' 
tales  and  spent  four  years  of  his  early  manhood  in 
Africa.  In  1885  he  returned  to  Paris,  resumed  his  liter- 
ary work  and,  a  year  later,  founded  La  Vogue^  the  little 
review  which  saw  the  birth  of  free  verse.  Almost  at  the 
same  time  he  edited  (with  Moreas  and  Paul  Adam)  Le 
Symboliste  and  in  1889  revived  La  Vogue.  These  de- 
tails are  important  in  the  history  of  French  poetry.  M. 
Kahn's  claims  as  the  founder  of  the  free  verse  move- 
ment have  been  disputed.     But  the  movement  first  found 

[179] 


expression  through  him  and  he  gave  it  its  complete  critical 
theory.  Up  to  1897  he  devoted  himself  to  poetry.  Since 
he  has  written  fiction  but  chiefly  criticism  of  a  very  subtle 
and  penetrating  kind. 

Criticism  and  Biography: 

Fcneon,  Felix:     Kahn.     (Les  Hommes  d'aujourd'- 

hui.)  n.  d. 
Randon,  G. :     Gustave  Kahn. 

The  Poetical  Works  : 

Les  Palais  Nomades.  1887.  Chansons  d'amant. 
1891.  Domaine  de  Fees.  1895.  La  Pluie  et  le 
Beau  Temps.  1895.  Lin^bes  de  Lumiere.  1895. 
Le  Livre  d'Images.     1897. 

STUART  MERRILL  (born  1863) 

is  a  native  of  Hempstead,  Long  Island.  His  child- 
hood and  boyhood  were  passed  in  Paris  and  at  the 
Lycee  Condorcet  he  had  as  fellow-students  half  a  dozen 
of  the  future  Symbolists.  In  1885  he  returned  to  New 
York,  studied  law  at  Columbia,  and  in  1890,  published 
through  Harper  &  Brothers  a  series  of  translations 
from  contemporary  French  literature  called  Pastels  in 
Prose.  He  returned  to  France,  devoted  himself  to  poetry 
and  Socialistic  work  and  wrote  articles  on  French  litera- 
ture for  the  New  York  Times  and  Evening  Post. 
Neither  as  a  social  reformer — often  through  the  medium 
of  the  arts — nor  as  a  poet  of  ever  deeper  and  riper  power 

[180] 


— though  in  a  foreign  tongue — has  M.  Merrill  ever  re- 
ceived the  recognition  in  his  native  country  which  is  his 
due. 

The  Poetical  Works  : 

Les  Gammes.  1887.  Les  Fastes.  1897.  Petits 
Poemes  d'Automne.  1895.  Les  Quatre  Saisons. 
1900. 

MAURICE  MAETERLINCK  (born  1862) 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  give  a  sketch  of  Maeter- 
linck here.  For  a  full  discussion  of  his  dramatic  works 
with  bibliographical  material  the  reader  is  referred 
to:  Lewisohn:  The  Modern  Drama  (2nd  Ed.)  1917. 
Maeterlinck  abandoned  poetry  early.  What  he  did  write 
in  verse  is  interesting  as  contributing  the  peculiar  Maeter- 
linckian  note  also  to  modern  French  poetry.- 

The  Poetical  Works  : 

Serres  chaudes.     1889.     Douze  Chansons.     1896. 

REMY  DE  GOURMONT  (1858-1915) 

was  born  at  the  chateau  de  la  Motte  at  Bazoches-en- 
Houlme.  On  his  father's  side  he  came  of  a  family  of 
famous  printers  and  engravers  of  the  Fifteenth  and  Six- 
teenth Centuries,  on  his  mother's  side  he  was  a  collateral 
descendant  of  Malherbe.  As  a  youth  he  was  an  employe 
of  the  Bibliotheque  nationale.  An  article  of  his  in  the 
Mercure  de  France  offended  official  patriotism  and  he 

[181] 


was  dismissed.  He  now  gave  himself  up  to  his  vast  in- 
tellectual labors  as  poet,  critic,  dramatist,  philosopher, 
biologist,  novelist,  grammarian,  etc.,  contributing  to 
French,  German,  Austrian,  North  and  South  American  re- 
views and  publishing  dozens  of  volumes  of  an  extraordi- 
nary intellectual  richness,  subtlety  and  stylistic  charm. 
A  great  man  of  letters,  if  a  poet  of  but  secondary 
rank. 

Criticism  and  Biography: 

Querlon,  Pierre  de:     Remy  de  Gourmont.     1903. 
Vorluni,  Giuseppe:     Remy  de  Gourmont.     1901. 

The  Poetical  Works  : 

Hieroglyphes.  1894.  Les  Saintes  du  Paradis. 
1899.  Oraisons  mauvaises.  1900.  Simone,  poeme 
champetre.  1901.  Divertissements.  (A  reprint  of 
the  contents  of  the  earlier  volumes  together  with: 
Paysages  spirituels,  Le  Vieux  Coffret  and  La  Main. 
1914. 

ALBERT  SAMAIN  (1858-1900) 

was  the  son  of  a  family  of  small  bourgeois  of  Lille.  Los- 
ing his  father  at  fourteen  he  had  to  leave  school  and 
passed  difficult  years  in  commerce.  The  government 
service  first  at  home,  later  (1880)  in  Paris  brought  relief 
and  increased  leisure.  His  shy  and  frugal  genius  came 
to  a  rather  late  maturity,  and  when  at  last  a  measure  of 
fame  was  his,  bereavement  and  ill  health  had  already 
broken  him. 

[182] 


Criticism  and  Biography: 

Bersaucourt,  Albert  de :     Conference  sur  A.  Samain. 

1907. 
Bocquet,  Leon :     Albert  Samain,  sa  Vie,  son  Oeuvre. 

1905. 

The  Poetical  Works  : 

Au  Jardin  de  L'Infante.     1893.     ^^^  Flancs  du 
Vase.     1898.     Le  Chariot  d'Or.     1901. 

EDMOND  ROSTAND  (born  1868) 

For  a  detailed  account  of  Rostand  the  reader  may  again 
be  referred  to  Lewisohn:  The  Modern  Drama  (2nd 
Ed.)  1917.  M.  Rostand  is  curiously  below  his  highest 
level  when  not  using  the  medium  of  drama.  But  his  in- 
clusion here  was  necessary  to  mark  an  important  element 
in  modern  French  poetry. 

The  Poetical  Works  : 
Les  Musardises. 

FRANCIS  JAMMES  (born  1^68) 

is  a  native  of  Tournay  (Hautes-Pyrenees)  a  thorough 
Frenchman  of  the  South.  His  grandfather  emigrated 
to  South  America,  his  father  was  born  there.  After 
the  latter's  early  death  the  poet,  having  been  a  collegian 
at  both  Pau  and  Bordeaux  settled  with  his  mother 
at  Orthez  where  he  has  since  lived  and  which  he  has 
made  famous  by  his  verse.     He  published  first  in  lo- 

[183] 


cally  printed  pamphlets.  One  of  these  attracted  the  at- 
tention of  the  Mercure  de  France  in  1893.  The  reviewer, 
observing  a  dedication  to  Hubert  Crackanthorpe,  reasoned 
that  Jammes  must  be  a  printer's  error  for  James.  So 
humble  were  the  beginnings  of  a  poet  who  soon  conquered 
a  very  distinct  and  secure  fame  for  himself.  His  per- 
sonal beliefs  and  tastes  and  history  need  hardly  any  com- 
mentary beyond  his  verses. 

The  Poetical  Works  : 

Four  pamphlets  of  verse,  all  printed  at  Orthez  be- 
tween 1891  and  1894.  Un  Jour,  poeme  dialogue. 
1896.  La  Naissance  du  Poete.  1897.  De  I'Ange- 
lus  de  I'Aube  a  TAngelus  du  Soir.  1898.  Le  Deuil 
des  Primeveres.  1901.  Le  Triomphe  de  la  Vie. 
1902.  L'figlise  habillee  de  feuilles.  1906.  Clair- 
ieres  dans  le  CieL  1906.  Pensee  des  Jardins. 
1906.  Poemes  mesures.  1908.  Les  Georgiques 
Chretiennes.     1912. 

CHARLES  GUERIN  (1873-1907) 

was  born  of  a  family  of  wealthy  manufacturers  of  Lune- 
ville.  He  studied  at  Nancy,  lived  alternately  at  Lune- 
ville  and  Paris  and  spent  much  time  in  Germany  and 
Italy.  His  reputation  was  established  early,  but  a  crisis 
of  the  soul  which  made  him  a  Catholic  seemed  to  rob  him 
of  lyrical  spontaneity.  He  was  aware  of  this  fact  which 
lends  pathos  to  some  of  his  last  verses. 

[184] 


The  Poetical  Works: 

Joies  grises.  1894.  Sonnets  et  un  Poeme.  1897. 
Le  Coeur  Solitaire.  1898.  Le  Semeur  des  Cendres. 
1901.     L'Homme  Interieur.     1905. 

HENRY  BATAILLE  (1872) 

is  a  native  of  Nimes.  His  single  volume  of  verse  is  of 
extraordinary  originality  and  earned  for  him  a  place  in 
Gourmont's  Livre  des  Masques.  It  is  unfortunate  that 
the  writing  of  his  vigorous  but  by  no  means  first  rate 
plays  has  permitted  him  to  add  but  a  few  new  poems  in 
the  second  edition  of  his  original  collection. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

La  Chambre  Blanche.  1895.  Le  Beau  Voyage. 
1904. 

PAUL  FORT  (born  1872) 

is  a  native  of  Rheims.  Of  his  origin  or  family  little 
information  is  available  at  present.  As  a  youth  of 
eighteen  he  founded  the  Theatre  (TArt  in  opposition  to 
the  dominance  of  Naturalism  and  presented  The  Cenci 
and  pieces  by  Verlaine,  Maeterlinck,  Gourmont,  etc.  In 
1893  ^^^  theatrical  venture  collapsed  and  M.  Fort  turned 
definitely  to  poetry.  His  productivity  since  then  has  been 
enormous.  To  live  and  write  the  sixteen  volumes  of  the 
Ballades  frangaises  in  twenty  years  is,  in  itself,  a  sufficient 
biography, 

[185] 


The  Poetical  Works: 

Ballades  frangaises.  1897.  Montagne.  Ballades 
frangaises.  He  Serie.  1898.  Le  Roman  de  Louis 
XL  Ballades  franqaises.  Ille  Serie.  1899.  Les 
Idylles  Antiques.  Ballades  frangaises.  IVe  Serie. 
1900.  L' Amour  marin.  Ballades  frangaises.  Ve 
Serie,  1900.  Paris  Sentimental  ou  le  Roman  de  nos 
vingt  ans.  Ballades  frangaises.  Vie  Serie.  1902. 
Les  Hymnes  de  feu.  Ballades  frangaises.  Vile 
Serie.  1903.  Coxcomb  ou  I'homme  tout  nu  tombe 
du  Paradis.  Ballades  frangaises.  Vllle  Serie.  1906. 
lie  de  France.  Ballades  francaises.  IXe  Serie.  1908. 
Montcerf.  Ballades  frangaises.  Xe  Serie.  1909. 
La  Tristesse  de  I'homme.  Ballades  frangaises. 
Xle  Serie.  1910.  L'Aventure  fiternelle.  Bal- 
lades frangaises.  Xlle  Serie.  1911.  Montlhery- 
La-Bataille.  Ballades  frangaises.  Xllle  Serie. 
1912.  Vivre  en  Dieu.  Ballades  frangaises.  XI Ve 
Serie.  1912.  Chansons  Pour  se  consoler  d'Etre 
Heureux.  Ballades  frangaises.  XVe  Serie.  1913. 
Les  Nocturnes.  Ballades  frangaises.  XVIe  Serie. 
1914. 

HENRI  BARBUSSE  (born  1874) 

is  a  native  of  Asnieres.  He  is  a  dramatic  critic,  a  dis- 
tinguished journalist  and  novelist.  His  early  poems, 
charming  in  themselves,  take  on  an  added  interest  now  as 
coming  from  the  author  of  Le  Feu. 

[186] 


The  Poetical  Works: 
Pleureuses.     1895. 

PIERRE  LOUYS  (born  1870) 

is  a  native  of  Paris  and  the  son  of  a  distinguished 
house.  His  education  was  learned  and,  unlike  the  ma- 
jority of  modern  French  poets,  he  is  a  scholar  in  the 
technical  sense.  His  work  as  a  man  of  letters  is  al- 
most wholly  the  result  of  the  influence  of  his  Greek  studies 
upon  his  ardent  temperament.  His  novel  Aphrodite 
(1896)  made  his  reputation  international:  his  pseudo- 
versions  of  Greek  poetry  have  deceived  the  learned.  His 
publication  of  verse  in  which  he  speaks  in  his  own  person 
has  been  limited. 

Criticism  and  Biography: 

Gaubcrt,   Ernest:     Pierre   Louys.     1904. 
Wilamowitz-Moellendorf,       Ulrich       von:     Pierre 
Louys.     Gottingische   Gelehrte   Anzeigen.     1896. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Astartc.     1891.     Les   Poesies   de    Meleagre.     1893. 
Les  Chansons  de  Bilitis.     1894. 

CAMILLE  MAUCLAIR  (born  1872) 

a  native  of  Paris  and  of  Jnirifth^figiii^  is  one  of  the  most 
fertile  minds  of  modern  France.  An  admirable  poet  and 
story  writer  he  has  achieved  his  highest  distinction  as  a 
critic  of  literature,  of  thought  and  of  painting. 

[187] 


Criticism  and  Biography: 

Aubry,  G.-Jean:     Camille  Mauclair.     1905. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Sonatines  d'Automne.  1895.  Le  sang  parle. 
1904. 

FERNAND  GREGH  (born  1873) 

is  a  native  of  Paris.  His  rise  to  fame  because  one  of 
his  poems  was  mistaken  by  good  judges  for  Verlaine's 
was  sudden.  But  he  has  known  how  to  sustain  it  and 
his  work  commends  itself,  more  than  that  of  most  of 
the  younger  men,  to  the  acknowledged  chiefs  of  French 
criticism,  Faguet  and  Lanson. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

La  Maison  de  I'Enfance.  1897.  La  Beaute  de 
vivre.  1900.  La  Clarte  humaine.  1904.  L'Or 
des  Minutes.     1905.     La  Chaine  eternelle.     1910. 

PAUL  SOUCHON  (born  1874) 

is  a  native  of  Laudun  on  the  Rhone.  He  is  practically 
the  only  modern  French  poet  of  immediate  peasant  de- 
scent, which  may  account  for  the  clearness,  the  sobriety, 
the  realism  of  his  work.  He  has  written — an  uncommon 
thing  in  this  age — only  verse. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Les  filevations  poetiques.     1898.     Nouvelles  fJleva- 

[188] 


tions  poetiques.  1901.  Elegies  Parislennes.  1902. 
La  Beaute  de  Paris.     1904. 

HENRY  SPIESS  (1876) 

is  a  native  of  Geneva  and  an  interesting  representative  of 
the  French  literary  movement  in  West  Switzerland.  He 
is  a  lawyer  and  started  out  with  a  whimsical  but  poetical 
interpretation  of  his  profession. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Rimes  d' Audience.  1903.  Le  Silence  des  Heures. 
1904.     Chansons  captives.     1910. 

MAURICE  MAGRE  (born  1877) 

is  a  native  of  Toulouse  and  strove,  for  a  time,  to  make 
his  native  city  a  centre  of  literature  and  criticism.  He 
then  abandoned  it  for  Paris  where  his  productivity  in 
later  years  has  been  largely  in  the  direction  of  poetic 
drama.     (Les  Belles  de  nuiU     1913). 

The  Poetical  Works: 

£veils.  1895.  La  Chanson  des  Hommes.  1898. 
Le  Poeme  de  la  Jeunesse.  1901.  Les  Levres  et  le 
Secret.     1906. 

LEO  LARGUIER  (born  1878) 

is  a  native  of  La  Grand'  Combe  in  the  Cevennes.  Al- 
most alone  among  the  younger  poets  he  has  kept  clear 
of  Symbolism  and  carries  on  consciously  and  with  an 

[189] 


air  of  magnificence  the  tradition  of  Lamartine  and 
Hugo.  Forced,  apparently,  into  several  sorts  of  superior 
hack-work  (Les  Grands  £crivains  a  travers  les  Grands 
Villes)  he  has  not,  like  many  of  his  contemporaries, 
abandoned  his  admirable  poetic  work. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

La  Maison  du  Poete.  1903.  Les  Isolements, 
1906.     Jacques,  poeme.     1907.     Orchestres.     1914. 

CHARLES  VILDRAC  (born  1882) 

a  native  of  Paris,  is  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  latest  move- 
ment— a  subtle  thinker,  a  remarkable  experimenter  in 
verse. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Poemes.  1905.  Images  et  Mirages.  1908.  Le 
Livre  d' Amour.     1910.     Decouvertes.     1912. 

GEORGES  DUHAMEL  (1882) 

is,  like  his  brother-in-law  Vildrac,  a  Parisian  and  an 
insurgent,  and  collaborated  with  him  in  the  most  definite 
statement  of  the  achievement  and  principles  of  the  new 
school:     Les  Poetes  et  La  Poesie,     1914. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Des  Legendes,  des  Batailles.  1907.  L'Homme  en 
Tete.  1909.  Selon  ma  Loi.  1910.  La  Lumiere. 
1911. 

[190] 


f 


EMILE  DESPAX  (1881) 

is  a  native  of  Dax,  a  man  of  liberal  education,  a  govern- 
ment official,  an  excellent  example  of  the  more  traditional 
poetic  workman  of  France. 

The  Poetical  Works: 

Au  Seuil  de  la  Lande.     1902.    La  Maison  des  Gly- 
cines.    1905. 


[191] 


INDEX  OF  THE  FIRST  LINES  IN 
FRENCH  AND  ENGLISH 


INDEX  OF  FIRST  LINES 

Attestant  la  blancheur  native  des  chairs  mates,  97 
Showing  the  whiteness  of  flesh  faint  and  fair 

Belle  heure,  il  faut  nous  separer,  110 
'Tis  time  for  us  to  say  good-night 

Ce  petit  air  de  cloche  errant  dans  le  matin,  139 

Faint  music  of  a  bell  which  dawn  brings  to  my  ear 
C'est  une  face  fine  et  legere,  112 

Hers  is  a  fine  and  buoyant  face 
C'est  un  trou  de  verdure,  ou  chante  une  riviere,  181 

There's  a  green  hollow  where  a  river  sings 
Cette  fille,  elle  est  morte,  est  morte  dans  ses  amours,  135 

This  girl  is  dead^  is  dead  in  love's  old  way 
Chaque  fois  qu'  Adam  rencontre  £ve,  137 

Each  time  that  Eve  and  Adam  meet 
Couche-toi  sur  la  greve,  et  prends  en  tes  deux  mains,  105 

Rest  on  the  shore  and  take  m  your  two  hands 

Dans  la  rue,  a  midi,  quand  la  marree  humaine,  148 
When  in  the  street  at  noon  the  human  tide 

Dans  la  salle  en  rumeur  un  silence  a  passe,  124 
On  the  loud  room  falls  silence  like  a  trance 

Dans  le  vieux  pare  solitaire  et  glace,  75 

In  the  old  park^  lonely  and  bound  by  frost 

[195] 


D'autres  viendront  par  la  pre,  109 

Others  will  come  across  the  plain 
De  ses  quatre  pieds  purs  faisant  feu  sur  le  sol,  142 

His  pure  feet  striking  sparks  of  flint  that  rise 
Du  cote  de  Paris,  141 

On  the  way  to  Paris 
Du  front  de  la  montagne,  158 

From  the  tall  mountain's  brow 

En  allant  vers  la  Ville  ou  Ton  chante  aux  terasses,  99 
On  our  way  to  the  city  of  the  singing  street 

Encore  un  livre :  6  nostalgies,  96 

Another  book/    How  my  heart  flees 

En  province,  dans  la  langueur  matutinale,  82 

In  small  towns,  in  the  languid  morn  and  frail 

Heroique  foret  de  legende  et  de  songe,  106 
Heroic  forest  of  legend  and  of  dream 

II  est  ainsi  de  pauvres  coeurs,  88 

With  hearts  of  poor  men  it  is  so 
II  faut  admirer  tout  pour  s'exalter  soi-meme,  90 

To  exalt  thyself  all  life  exalted  deem 
II  meurt  sur  les  plus  hautes  branches,  146 

Upon  the  topmost  branches  dies 
II  pleut.     Je  reve.     Et  je  crois  voir  entre  les  arbres,  160 

Musing,  I  seem  upon  the  glistening  space 

J'ai  cherche  trente  ans,  mes  soeurs,  119 
I  have  sought  thirty  years,  my  sisters 

[196] 


J'ai  vu  les  femmes  qui  s'en  vont,  143 

/  have  seen  gentle  ladies  fade 
J'allais  par  des  chemins  perfides,  77 

Sad  and  lost  I  walked  where  wide 
Je  fais  souvent  ce  reve  etrange  et  penetrant,  74 

Often  this  strange  and  poignant  dream  is  mine 
Je  sais  que  tu  es  pauvre,  127 

That  thou  art  poor  I  see 
Je  suis  Tane  savant,  celui  meme  qui  etonne,  129 

Fm  the  trained  ass,  the  very  ass  who  can 
Je  t*ecris  et  la  lampe  ecoute,  145 

The  clock  ticks  the  slow  minutes  out 

La  colline  boisee  vient  border  la  riviere,  136 

The  wooded  hill  slopes  down  even  unto  the  stream 
L'ambre,  le  seigle  mur,  le  miel  plein  de  lumiere,  133 

Amber,  ripe  rye  or  honey  full  of  light 
La  lune  s'attristait.     Des  seraphins  en  pleurs,  73 

The  moon  grew  sad.     The  tear-stained  seraphim 
Le  del  est,  par-dessus  le  toit,  80 

Above  the  roof  the  sky  expands 
L'enfant  lit  Talmanach  pres  de  son  panier  d'oeufs,  130 

The  child  reads  on.    Its  basket  of  eggs  stands  by 
Le  moulin  tourne  au  fond  du  soir,  tres  lentement,  83 

In  deep  grey  dusk  the  mill  turns  faltering 
Le  piano  que  baise  une  main  f  rele,  78 

The  key-board  which  frail  fingers  gently  stir 
Les  grand'routes  tracent  des  croix,  85 

The  highways  run  in  figure  of  the  rood 
[197] 


Les  f enouils  m'ont  dit :  II  t'aime  si,  93 

The  fenel  says:  so  mad  his  love 
Les  mains  que  je  vois  en  reve,  149 

Hands  that  in  my  dreams  I  see 
Les  roses  etaient  toutes  rouges,  79 

Too  red,  too  red  the  roses  were 
Les  sept  iilles  d'Orlamonde,  118 

The  seven  daughters  of  Orlamonde 
Le  Seraphin  des  soirs  passe  le  long  des  fleurs,  123 

The  evening's  angel  passes  where  flowers  glow 
Lorsque  je  serai  vieux  et  qu'illustre  poete,*i53 

When  I  am  old  and  poet  of  renown 
Lorsque  I'heure  viendra  de  la  coupe  remplie,  108 

Spare  me  from  seeing,  goddess,  by  my  bed 

Mais  c'est  au  coeur  de  la  foret,  137 

But  on  a  hidden  forest  ground 
Mon  front  pale  est  sur  tes  genoux,  114 

Against  thy  knees  my  pallid  brow 

Ne  dites  pas:  la  vie  est  un  joyeux  festin,  94 

Say  not:  Life  is  a  joyous  festival 
Nous  avons,  nous  aussi,  nos  fards,  nos  artifices,  151 

We,  too,  no  less,  have  all  our  little  arts 

O  bel  Avril  epanoui,  ill 

0  lovely  April,  rich  and  bright 
O  ma  fiUe,  ouvre  la  porte,  144 

0  my  daughter,  open  the  gate 

[198] 


On  voit,  quand  vient  Tautomne,  aux  fils  telegraphiques, 

131 
You  see  in  Autumn  on  the  telegraph  wires 

Par  les  vitres  grises  de  la  lavanderie,  134 

Here^  in  the  laundry^  through  the  blurred  window^ 
pane 
Porte  haute !  ne  crains  point  Tombre,  laisse  ouvert,  103 

Fear  not  the  shadow!     Open^  lofty  gate 

Quand  de  la  tragique  vie,  94 

When  the  heaviness  and  void 

Si  Ton  gardait,  depuis  des  temps,  des  temps,  155 
//  one  were  to  keep  for  many  years  and  days 

Simone,  la  neige  est  blanche  comme  ton  cou,  120 
Simoney  white  as  thy  throat  the  snow  I  see 

Sous  vos  longues  chevelures,  petites  fees,  92 

0  little  fairies,  under  your  long,  long  hair 

Un  coup  de  tonerre!     Et  I'effroi,  138 

The  thunder's  peal!    Against  my  side 

Un  petit  roseau  m'a  suffit,  101 
A  little  reed  has  been  enough 

Va  cherche  dans  la  vieille  foret  humaine,  121 

Go  seeking  in  the  human  forest  old 
Venez  avec  des  couronnes  de  primeveres  dans  vos  mains, 
116 
Ohy  come  with  crowns  of  primroses  that  in  your 
hands  are  borne 

[199] 


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